from  Him  to  quicken  the  life  which  He  has 
breathed  into  man. 

2.  That  the  healing  power  comes  to  man 
through  the  Incarnation  of  the  Son  of  God. 

3.  That  Christ  Himself  is  the  Healer,  for  it 
was  through  His  human  nature  on  earth,  and 
it  is  through  His  glorified  humanity  now,  that 
we  receive  his  healing  power. 

We  come  now  to  our  Lord's  earthly  minis- 
try, and  as  we  study  His  life,  this  great  truth 
stands  out  before  us,  that  Christ  has  revealed 
Himself  as  the  Saviour,  not  of  the  spirit  only, 
but  of  the  whole  of  man's  being,  spirit,  soul 
and  body. 

The  prophecies  of  the  coming  of  Christ  fore- 
told that  He  should  be  the  Saviour  of  the  body 
as  well  as  of  the  soul  and  spirit,  and  that  He 
should  come  "with  healing  in  His  Wings" 
(Mai.  iv.  2).  "Behold  your  God  ...  He 
will  come  and  save  you.  Then  the  eyes  of  the 
blind  shall  be  opened  and  the  ears  of  the  deaf 
shall  be  unstopped.  Then  shall  the  lame  man 
leap  as  a  hart  and  the  tongue  of  the  dumb 
sing"  (Isaiah  xxxv.  4-6) .  These  words  are  lit- 
erally fulfilled  in  Christ.  There  is  no  reason 
to  rob  them  of  their  literal  significance.  It 
was  in  the  fulfilment  of  these  prophecies  that 
He  revealed  Himself  as  the  promised  Emman- 
uel, as  He  clearly  showed  in  His  answer  to  the 
disciples  of  St.  John  the  Baptist:  "Go  your 
way  and  tell  John  what  things  ye  have  seen  and 
heard;  how  that  the  blind  see,  the  lame  walk, 

16 


the  lepers  are  cleansed,  the  deaf  hear,  the  dead 
are  raised,  to  the  poor  the  gospel  is  preached" 
(St.  Luke  vii.  22).  Our  Lord  takes  Isaiah's 
prophecy  as  the  summary  of  His  mission  and 
His  message  to  the  world.  "The  spirit  of  the 
Lord  is  upon  me,  because  He  hath  anointed 
Me  to  preach  the  gospel  to  the  poor;  He  hath 
sent  Me  to  heal  the  broken-hearted,  to  preach 
deliverance  to  the  captives,  and  recovery  of 
sight  to  the  blind ;  to  set  at  liberty  them  that 
are  bruised"  (Isaiah  Ixi.  1;  St.  Luke  iv.  18). 

The  mission  of  our  Lord  upon  the  earth  was 
the  salvation  of  the  entire  being  of  man.  He 
worked  on  each  plane  of  man's  being  accord- 
ing to  the  need  of  the  sufferer.  The  woman 
who  wept  at  His  feet,  and  whose  spirit  was 
bruised  and  broken  by  sin,  He  pardoned  and 
blessed.  To  the  man,  dwelling  among  the 
tombs,  whose  mind  was  darkened  and  chained, 
He  gave  freedom  and  light;  and  those  whose 
bodies  were  afflicted  with  disease  or  racked 
with  pain,  He  touched  into  life  and  health. 

Now  we  affirm  that  the  revelation  of  our 
Lord  as  the  "Saviour  of  the  body"  cannot  be 
for  the  period  of  His  earthly  ministry  alone, 
for  Jesus  Christ  is  "the  same  yesterday,  to- 
day and  for  ever,"  and  what  He  brought  to 
humanity  by  His  Incarnation  and  His  work 
of  redemption  is  for  all  time  and  for  every 
nation.  We  can  come  to  Him  as  our  Healer, 
and  our  Good  Physician  now,  as  we  should 
have  come  in  the  days  of  His  visible  Presence 

17 


GIFT  OF 


Jfi  l»?f 


Bp      The      ^^ 
Healing  of  Christ 

In 
His  Church 

JAMES  MOORE  HICKSON 

Author  of 
The  Revival  of  the 
Gifts  of  Healing 


New    York 


EDWIN  S.  GORHAM,  Publisher 

.:.     -:-    -:-      11  WEST  45th   STREET      -:-    -:-     •:- 


Price  SO  Ccnta 


The 
Healing  of  Christ 

In 
His  Church 

JAMES  MOORE  HICKSON 

Author  of 
The  Revival  of  the 
Gifts  of  Healing 


New    York 


EDWIN  S.  GORHAM,  Publisher 

-:-    -:-    -:-      11  WEST  45th   STREET      -:-    -t-    -:- 

1919 


Copyrighted  1919 
EDWIN  S.  GORHAM 


INTRODUCTION 

It  is  apparent  on  all  sides  that  there  is  a 
gradual  awakening  in  many  hearts  to  the 
truth  of  the  Healing  Presence  of  Christ  in  His 
Church.  Many  are  seeking  the  truth  and 
longing  for  healing,  and  those  who  are  seek- 
ing it  in  Christ  Himself,  who  is  the  Truth, 
are  finding  the  fulfilment  of  God's  promises: 
"Seek  and  ye  shall  find:  knock  and  it  shall  be 
opened  unto  you."  "Blessed  are  they  which 
do  hunger  and  thirst  after  righteousness,  for 
they  shall  be  filled."  I  believe  that  God  has 
much  to  teach  us  in  the  life  of  His  Son  Jesus 
Christ,  and  in  the  truth  of  His  Presence  in  our 
midst,  and  this  little  book  is  sent  out,  with  the 
consciousness  of  many  imperfections  and 
shortcomings,  yet  with  the  earnest  desire  that 
with  God's  blessing  it  may  bring  to  the  Church 
a  helpful  message  of  the  Healing  Presence  of 
Christ.  It  is  my  great  desire  to  see  the 
Church,  under  the  guidance  of  her  Bishops, 
carrying  on  once  more  this  part  of  her  mission 
as  the  instrument  of  our  Lord's  Ministry  of 
Healing,  and  I  feel  the  great  importance  of 
the  first  steps.  There  are  many  rays  of  truth 
presented  to  the  world  at  the  present  time, 
and  the  tendency  is  to  accept  this  way  or  that 
as  the  whole  truth.  The  whole  truth  is  in 
Christ  alone.  He  who  is  Truth  and  Light  of 
Light  gathers  up  all  rays  of  light  and  truth  in 
Himself,  for  all  come  from  Him  and  all  lead 
back  to  Him. 

3 


INTRODUCTION 

If  the  Church  will  approach  this  subject 
from  the  spiritual  side,  she  will  find  in  Christ 
the  source  of  all  healing,  and  as  the  Church 
yields  herself  in  renewed  faith  to  Him,  as  His 
minister  to  a  sick  and  suffering  world,  He  will 
stretch  out  through  her  ministries  a  Loving 
Hand  to  save,  and  many  a  poor  soul  "whom 
Satan  hath  bound,"  and  whom  the  Church 
seems  at  present  powerless  to  help,  will  be 
sought  by  the  Good  Shepherd  until  He  find  it, 
and  laid  on  His  shoulder  rejoicing.  If  the 
Church,  waiting  upon  God,  will  go  forward 
in  faith,  taking  each  step  as  it  is  revealed,  she 
need  not  fear  the  dangers  that  surround  her, 
for  Christ  Himself  is  the  Way. 

This  little  book  is  offered  to  God  as  a  humble 
and  all  unworthy  thank-offering  for  all  His 
love;  and  for  the  revelation  of  His  Healing 
Presence,  and  for  the  healing  He  has  brought 
to  many  burdened  lives. 

I  pray  that  God's  blessing  may  rest  upon  it, 
and  upon  all  the  Church's  Ministry  of  Heal- 
ing, and  that  this  message  may  be  blessed  to 
every  heart  to  which  it  comes. 

J.  M.  H. 


SPIRITUAL  HEALING 


We  must  understand  that  under  the  term 
"Spiritual  Healing"  are  included  differenti- 
ated powers. 

There  is  first  prayer,  which  is  the  vital 
breath  of  this  work,  as  of  all  Christian  life. 
Prayer  is  the  turning  of  the  heart's  desire 
to  God  and  the  opening  of  our  hearts  to 
receive  that  for  which  we  ask.  Faith  is  the 
acceptance  of  God's  promises  and  of  His  will 
as  He  has  revealed  Himself  to  us  in  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ.  We  must  not  be  content  with 
the  wavering,  uncertain  faith  that  says:  "If 
it  be  God's  Will  He  will  heal  me,"  but  we  must 
by  the  help  of  the  Holy  Spirit  follow  on  to 
know  the  Lord,  and  know  from  our  Lord's 
revelation  of  Himself  that  it  is  His  Will  to 
heal,  and  that  the  means  He  has  appointed 
cannot  fail  of  their  effect.  Faith  is  also  the 
certainty  that:  "If  we  ask  anything  accord- 
ing to  His  Will  He  heareth  us,  and  if  we  know 
that  He  hear  us,  whatsoever  we  ask,  we  know 
that  we  have  the  petitions  that  we  desired  of 
Him"  (1  St.  John  y.  14,  15).  In  prayer  we 
are  co-operating  with  God,  for  when  our  will 
is  yielded  to  Him,  the  Holy  Spirit  prays  with- 

5 


in  us,  making  intercession  for  the  saints  ac- 
cording to  the  Will  of  God  with  groanings  that 
cannot  be  uttered.  Our  Lord  shows  the  stand- 
ard to  which  our  faith  in  prayer  needs  uplift- 
ing in  the  words:  "What  things  soever  ye  de- 
sire, when  ye  pray,  believe  that  ye  have  re- 
ceived them  (R.  V.)  and  ye  shall  have  them" 
(St.  Mark  xi.  24).  This  is  prayer  in  union 
with  God ;  the  very  petition  has  been  inspired 
by  God,  that  our  desire  to  receive  may  meet 
His  desire  to  give;  and  that  prayer  can  never 
fall  to  the  ground.  It  is  offered  to  the  Father 
through  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  we  know 
that  He  has  heard  us  and  that  our  prayer  is 
granted.  We  may  not  see  how  the  answer  is 
coming,  but  faith  rests  in  God  and  waits  pa- 
tiently in  Him  without  an  anxious  thought  or 
doubt,  for  He  is  directing  all  things  towards 
the  fulfilment  of  His  Will,  and  will  guide  us 
in  our  co-operation  with  Him  until  the  work 
is  accomplished. 

The  soul  which  prays  in  faith,  with  the  con- 
centrated earnestness  denoted  by  our  Lord's 
parable  of  the  importunate  widow,  cannot 
come  away  without  receiving  the  communica- 
tion of  healing  power,  though  he  is  perfectly 
content  to  know  that  the  answer  will  not  al- 
ways be  given  according  to  the  limitations  of 
his  desire,  but  rather  with  the  fulness  of  love 
and  knowledge  and  power  which  the  Lord  uses 
in  His  relation  to  us. 

Our  Lord  has  told  us  that:  "If  two  of  you 

* 


shall  agree  on  earth  as  touching  anything  that 
they  shall  ask,  it  shall  be  done  for  them  of  My 
Father  which  is  in  heaven"  (St.  Matt,  xviii. 
19),  and  these  words  are  followed  by  the 
promise:  "Where  two  or  three  are  gathered 
together  in  My  Name  there  am  I  in  the  midst 
of  them"  (St.  Matt,  xviii.  20) .  So  mutual  in- 
tercession and  gatherings  for  intercessory 
prayer,  looking  to  Christ,  Who  is  present  in 
our  midst,  are  also  means  by  which  we  are 
seeking  healing  from  God  for  ourselves  and 
others. 

Then  there  is  the  Holy  Communion,  in 
which  we  spiritually  receive  the  Body  and 
Blood  of  Christ ;  this  is  our  great  help  in  spir- 
itual healing,  for  it  is  the  means  pur  Lord 
Himself  has  appointed  to  communicate  His 
life  to  us.  "Except  ye  eat  the  flesh  of  the  Son 
of  Man  and  drink  His  Blood,  ye  have  not  life 
in  you"  (St.  John  vi.  53). 

The  Prayer  Book  teaches  us  to  approach 
these  sacred  mysteries  with  our  whole  being 
receptive  to  God,  and  the  need  of  such  recep- 
tivity ought  to  be  more  deeply  realized.  We 
come  to  Christ  "that  our  sinful  bodies  may  be 
made  clean  by  His  Body,  and  our  souls  washed 
by  His  most  precious  Blood."  Christ  comes  to 
our  whole  being :  "The  Body  of  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  .  .  .  preserve  thy  body  and  soul  unto 
everlasting  life." 

Then  comes  the  thankful  acknowledgment 
that  we  are  Christ's  and  must  glorify  Him  in 

7 


our  bodies  and  our  spirits :  "Here  we  offer  and 
present  unto  Thee,  0  Lord,  ourselves,  our 
souls  and  bodies." 

It  f  ollows  that  if  we  would  aim  at  receiving 
our  Lord  in  the  fulness  in  which  He  wills  to 
come  to  us,  the  gates  of  spirit,  soul  and  body 
must  be  open  wide  that  the  King  of  Glory  may 
come  in. 

Persons  of  great  faith  have  been  known  to 
receive  healing  of  their  diseases  directly  from 
Christ  in  the  Holy  Communion.* 

If  we  all  would  respond  to  God's  desire  to 
fill  our  whole  being  by  an  earnest  desire  for 
Him — "My  soul  is  athirst  for  Thee:  my  flesh 
also  longeth  after  Thee" — this  would  become 
the  desire,  not  of  our  Communions  only,  but 
of  our  whole  life,  and  not  for  ourselves  only, 
but  for  others.  Consider  what  the  result 
would  be  if  the  faith  and  prayer  of  this  gen- 
eration would  consecrate  to  God  the  genera- 
tion that  is  coming,  seeking  to  yield  to  the  in- 
flowing life  of  God  the  bodies,  souls  and  spirits 

*  Two  striking  passages  from  the  experiences  of  Father  John, 
of  Russia,  bear  witness  to  this  fact : — 

"I  marvel  at  the  greatness  and  life-giving  properties  of  the 
Holy  Sacrament.  An  old  woman  who  was  spitting  blood  and 
who  had  lost  all  strength,  being  unable  to  eat  anything,  after  the 
adminstration  of  the  Holy  Sacrament,  which  I  administered  to 
her,  began  to  recover  the  same  day  from  her  illness." 

"A  young  girl  who  was  almost  dying,  after  the  Communion  of 
the  Holy  Sacrament  began  to  revive  the  same  day  from  her  ill- 
ness ;  began  to  eat,  drink  and  speak,  while  before  this  she  was 
almost  in  a  state  of  unconsciousness,  violently  tossed  about,  and 
could  neither  eat  nor  drink  anything.  Glory  to  Thy  life-giving 
and  terrible  mysteries,  O  Lord."  ["My  Life  in  Christ,"  p.  292.] 


of  the  children  growing  up  around  us.  We 
can  scarcely  over-estimate  the  benefit  to  hu- 
manity that  would  follow  from  attaining  to 
this  fuller  measure  of  what  the  Christian  life 
should  be:  God  would  be  working  among  us, 
not  only  restoring  the  individual  to  wholeness, 
but  radiating  His  Life  from  one  to  another  in 
unconscious  influence,  for  the  uplifting  of  the 
general  health  of  the  community. 

Although  God  grants  our  requests  for  heal- 
ing in  answer  to  prayer  and  united  interces- 
sion and  through  the  Holy  Communion,  and 
although  some  are  able  to  receive  healing  di- 
rectly through  these  means,  yet  God  has  or- 
dained special  means  by  which  He  imparts 
healing  to  us,  and  in  obedience  to  Him  and 
guided  by  His  Word  we  receive  these  means, 
bringing  into  them  the  indispensable  forces 
of  the  Christian  life  which  we  have  been  con- 
sidering. 

Frequently  in  the  Early  Church,  less  fre- 
quently through  the  Christian  ages,  and  in 
considerable  frequency  at  the  present  time, 
the  Holy  Spirit's  gift  of  healing  has  been  be- 
stowed. Those  whom  God  has  called  to  be 
channels  of  His  healing  power  are  conscious 
of  a  force  within  them,  which  may  be  trans- 
mitted to  others  with  curative  effect.  This 
gift  must  be  given  back  to  God,  Who  gave  it, 
and  consecrated  to  His  service;  then  it  be- 
comes sacramental,  and  must  only  be  used 
with  deepest  reverence  and  humility  and  with 

9 


prayer,  for  God  is  then  working  in  us  and 
through  the  channel  of  our  being  to  heal  the 
sick.  The  fact  of  such  gifts  cannot  be  doubted. 
When  consecrated  to  God  the  power  becomes 
in  nature  like  to  that  exercised  by  our  Lord, 
and  when  thus  used  in  conjunction  with  other 
spiritual  means  it  becomes  one  with  the  heal- 
ing power  of  Christ.* 

It  is  of  the  "gift  of  healing"  thus  used  that 
I  now  go  on  to  speak. 

I  should  like  to  point  out  that  healing  by  the 
laying  on  of  hands  is  a  distinct  gift.  In  1  Cor. 
xii.  30,  St.  Paul  asks :  "Have  all  the  gifts  of 
healing?"  In  the  same  chapter  he  answers 
his  own  question  thus :  "Now  there  are  diver- 
sities of  gifts,  but  the  same  Spirit  .  .  .  and 
there  are  differences  of  administrations,  but 
the  same  God  ...  the  manifestations,  of 
the  Spirit  is  given  to  every  man  ...  to  one 
is  given  by  the  Spirit  the  word  of  wisdom  .  .  . 
to  another  faith  .  .  .  to  another  the  gifts  of 
healing  by  the  same  Spirit  ...  to  another 
discerning  of  spirits,  ...  all  these  work- 
eth  that  one  and  the  self -same  Spirit,  dividing 
to  every  man  severally  as  He  will." 

Sometimes  it  is  asked,  How  is  it  that  there 
are  so  few  healers?  and  why  is  the  healing 
touch  so  seldom  used?  Chiefly  because,  hav- 
ing lost  faith  in  that  touch,  it  is  lying  dormant 


*  If  the  natural  gift,  which  God  has  bestowed  as  the  instrument 
of  the  spiritual,  be  not  consecrated,  and  no  spiritual  power  be 
brought  into  it,  it  will  work  only  on  the  physical  plane  as  animal 
magnetism,  and  the  work  will  fall  far  short  of  what  God  would 
have  it  be. 

19 


and  unused  in  the  majority  of  people  to  whom 
it  has  been  given.  Also,  some  who  feel  they 
have  this  power  within  them,  are  held  back 
from  exercising  it  by  timidity  and  the  fear  of 
appearing  presumptuous. 

This  leads  to  a  further  question :  How  can 
this  power  be  recognised  and  developed  by 
those  to  whom  it  is  given? 

The  first  step,  of  course,  is  to  realise  the  re- 
sponsibility of  possessing  the  gift.  Then  to 
open  the  mind  to  teaching  on  the  subject,  both 
from  within  and  without,  and  taking  the  gift 
back  to  God  from  Whom  it  came,  to  consecrate 
it,  as  we  have  said,  to  His  Service.  It  will  then 
be  found  almost  impossible  to  resist  the  im- 
pulse to  lay  the  hands  on  the  sick. 

In  speaking  of  spiritual  healing,  we  must 
always  keep  this  truth  clearly  before  us,  that 
in  all  such  healing,  from  the  works  that  our 
Lord  did  in  the  days  of  His  Flesh,  to  the  works 
that  He  is  doing  among  us  now,  there  is  One 
and  only  One  Healer,  and  that  is  Christ  Him- 
self. We  must  realise  this,  for  Christ  is  the 
Alpha  and  Omega,  the  Way,  the  Truth,  and 
the  Life  of  spiritual  healing.  Christ  alone  is 
the  Healer;  this  is  all  His  own  Ministry,  and 
those  whom  He  calls  to  carry  on  His  work  are 
only  channels  through  which  He  is  working, 
and  through  which  His  power  flows.  Then, 
because  this  is  Christ's  work,  it  can  have  no 
limitations  on  His  side.  What  man  is  able  to 
receive  is  the  only  limitation  to  what  Christ  is 

11 


able  to  give,  and  for  the  same  reason  the  heal- 
ing now,  as  in  the  days  of  His  earthly  minis- 
try, is  not  for  the  body  only,  but  for  the  whole 
trinity  of  man's  being,  spirit,  soul  and  body. 

There  are  two  points  on  which  I  want  to 
speak,  and  to  show  how  the  Church  differs 
from  the  teaching  of  Christian  Science. 

First,  I  want  to  show  that  in  Christian  heal- 
ing in  our  Lord's  Name  we  see  Life  proceed- 
ing from  God  and  coming  down  to  man,  and 
acting  upon  the  life  which  He  has  put  in  man, 
quickening  it  and  imparting  to  the  sufferer 
that  new  influx  of  life  of  which  he  is  in  need. 
It  is  a  power  from  without,  coming  to  quicken 
that  which  is  within.  I  think  the  Bible  teaches 
this  principle  very  clearly.  Christ  says  in  ref- 
erence to  His  gift  of  God  the  Holy  Ghost, 
given  to  man:  "If  any  man  thirst,  let  him 
come  unto  Me  and  drink"  (St.  John  vii.  37). 
"Come  unto  Me,  all  ye  that  labour  and  are 
heavy  laden  and  I  will  give  you  rest"  (St. 
Matt.  xi.  28),  and  again:  "I  am  come  that 
they  might  have  life,  and  that  they  might 
have  it  more  abundantly"  (St.  John  x. 
10 ).  He  gives  out  healing  by  His  touch 
or  His  word  of  power,  and  the  sick  receive  it 
from  Him.  We  are  told  that  'Tower  came 
forth  from  Him  and  healed  them  all"  (St. 
Luke  vi.  19).  When  He  is  touched  with  the 
touch  of  faith  He  perceives  that  virtue  has 
gone  out  of  Him  (St.  Luke  viii.  46).  That  is 
a  faithful  witness  to  the  outflowing  power  of 
Christ.  And  here  another  truth  unfolds  it- 


12 


self  before  us :  that  not  only  does  the  healing 
power  come  down  from  God  to  man,  but  it 
comes  through  one  and  only  one  channel,  and 
that  is  through  the  Incarnation  of  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ. 

Our  Lord  has  said:  "As  the  Father  hath 
life  in  Himself  even  so  gave  He  to  the  Son  also 
to  have  life  in  Himself"  (St.  John  v.  26).  The 
truth  of  the  Incarnation  is  the  very  essence  of 
Christianity  and  of  Christ's  ministry  of  heal- 
ing. Man  had  fallen,  and  because  sin  was  in 
the  world,  pain  and  disease  were  in  the  world 
as  its  results,  and  nothing  but  God's  pardon 
and  healing  could  uplift  humanity  to  the  per- 
fect soundness  which  is  God's  ideal  for  man. 
How  did  that  pardon  and  healing  come?  God 
could  find  in  fallen  man  no  instrument  at- 
tuned to  receive  what  humanity  so  sorely 
needed,  and  so  the  Son  of  God  became  Incar- 
nate. He  took  upon  Him  our  flesh,  He  took 
human  nature  in  its  purest  form,  matter  as 
well  as  soul  into  the  Godhead,  but  do  we  real- 
ise all  that  this  means  to  us?  As  the  Son  of 
God,  He  has  life  in  Himself,  and  as  man,  that 
life,  by  the  Father's  will,  fills  His  human 
Body.  The  Transfiguration  is  a  brief  vision 
of  the  life  and  glory  of  God  permeating  His 
human  form.  We  see  this  flowing  out  to  the 
sick  as  a  wonderful  power  of  healing  and  we 
know  that  the  Incarnation  means  this  to  us : 
that  because  the  Son  of  God  has  come  in  the 
flesh,  God  has  come  to  this  plane  of  our  crea- 

13 


tion  and  that  henceforth  God's  healing  power 
can  work  in  the  redeemed  material,  God's  own 
possession,  as  well  as  the  spiritual  part  of 
man's  nature  wherever  and  whenever  man  is 
open  to  receive  it,  and  that  this  is  what  we 
need  to  uplift  us  from  weakness  or  disease  to 
perfect  soundness. 

The  truth  of  the  Incarnation  is  the  rock  on 
which  our  Lord's  ministry  of  healing  is 
founded,  and  we  must  remember  that  only 
that  "spirit  that  confesseth  that  Jesus  Christ 
is  come  in  the  flesh  is  of  God"  (1  St.  John  iv. 
3). 

As  Christ  gave  out  life  and  healing  in  the 
days  of  His  visible  Presence  among  men  so  He 
continues  His  ministry  now,  and  He  has 
promised  that  His  faithful  followers  will  do 
"greater  works  .  .  .  because  I  go  to  My 
Father"  (St.  John  xiv.  12).  He  is  the  Lord 
of  life,  and  it  is  through  the  glorified  human- 
ity of  our  ascended  Lord  that  the  streams  of 
life  come  to  our  whole  being.  He  is  the  very 
centre  of  healing,  and  the  life  flowing  out 
from  Him  will  quicken  the  feeble  vitality  of 
the  sufferer,  and  give  the  greater  measure  of 
life  that  is  needed  to  cleanse  that  which  is 
diseased,  or  to  bring  back  due  adjustment  and 
control  and  to  restore  him  to  perfect  health. 

It  is  not  said  of  any  but  the  Perfect  Man, 
the  Son  of  God,  that  He  was  Life  in  Himself; 
those  whom  Christ  calls  to  carry  on  His  work 
are  only  channels  of  His  power.  "If  any  man 

14 


thirst,  let  him  come  unto  Me  and  drink.  He 
that  believeth  on  Me  .  .  .  out  of  him  shall 
flow  rivers  of  living  waters"  (St.  John  vii. 
37-38). 

I  think  that  when  the  Christian  Scientists 
affirm  that  they. are  by  nature  perfect  in  soul 
and  body,  they  ignore  the  redeeming  work  of 
our  Lord,  and  this  outflowing  Power  of  God 
for  our  development.  They  say  that  God 
made  us  perfect  and  that  we  have  remained 
so.  We,  on  the  other  hand,  believe  that  hu- 
manity has  fallen,  that  sin  and  suffering  are 
in  the  world ;  but  we  believe  that  Jesus  Christ 
has  come  in  the  flesh ;  that  in  Him  we  are  born 
again,  that  through  Him  we  receive  pardon 
and  healing,  and  that  by  His  continual  grace 
we  are  being  developed,  until  the  bud  of  per- 
fection, which  is  our  life  in  Christ,  will  blos- 
som into  the  perfect  flower. 

The  second  point  is  this :  Whereas  Christian 
Science  denies  the  existence  of  sin,  sickness 
and  disease,  looking  upon  them  simply  as  illu- 
sions, which  Christian  Scientists  try  to  dispel 
by  a  denial  of  their  existence,  we  admit  them 
to  the  full,  as  our  Lord  and  His  disciples  did, 
and,  with  God's  help,  try  to  overcome  them. 
Christ  has  overcome  the  world,  and  His  mes- 
sage to  us  is:  "He  that  overcometh  shall  in- 
herit all  things." 

We  have  thus  brought  out  three  truths 
which  we  should  keep  clearly  in  our  minds : 

1.   That  healing  is  the  life  of  God,  coming 

15 


from  Him  to  quicken  the  life  which  He  has 
breathed  into  man. 

2.  That  the  healing  power  comes  to  man 
through  the  Incarnation  of  the  Son  of  God. 

3.  That  Christ  Himself  is  the  Healer,  for  it 
was  through  His  human  nature  on  earth,  and 
it  is  through  His  glorified  humanity  now,  that 
we  receive  his  healing  power. 

We  come  now  to  our  Lord's  earthly  minis- 
try, and  as  we  study  His  life,  this  great  truth 
stands  out  before  us,  that  Christ  has  revealed 
Himself  as  the  Saviour,  not  of  the  spirit  only, 
but  of  the  whole  of  man's  being,  spirit,  soul 
and  body. 

The  prophecies  of  the  coming  of  Christ  fore- 
told that  He  should  be  the  Saviour  of  the  body 
as  well  as  of  the  soul  and  spirit,  and  that  He 
should  come  "with  healing  in  His  Wings" 
(Mai.  iv.  2).  "Behold  your  God  ...  He 
will  come  and  save  you.  Then  the  eyes  of  the 
blind  shall  be  opened  and  the  ears  of  the  deaf 
shall  be  unstopped.  Then  shall  the  lame  man 
leap  as  a  hart  and  the  tongue  of  the  dumb 
sing"  (Isaiah  xxxv.  4-6) .  These  words  are  lit- 
erally fulfilled  in  Christ.  There  is  no  reason 
to  rob  them  of  their  literal  significance.  It 
was  in  the  fulfilment  of  these  prophecies  that 
He  revealed  Himself  as  the  promised  Emman- 
uel, as  He  clearly  showed  in  His  answer  to  the 
disciples  of  St.  John  the  Baptist:  "Go  your 
way  and  tell  John  what  things  ye  have  seen  and 
heard;  how  that  the  blind  see,  the  lame  walk, 

16 


the  lepers  are  cleansed,  the  deaf  hear,  the  dead 
are  raised,  to  the  poor  the  gospel  is  preached" 
(St.  Luke  vii.  22).  Our  Lord  takes  Isaiah's 
prophecy  as  the  summary  of  His  mission  and 
His  message  to  the  world.  "The  spirit  of  the 
Lord  is  upon  me,  because  He  hath  anointed 
Me  to  preach  the  gospel  to  the  poor;  He  hath 
sent  Me  to  heal  the  broken-hearted,  to  preach 
deliverance  to  the  captives,  and  recovery  of 
sight  to  the  blind ;  to  set  at  liberty  them  that 
are  bruised"  (Isaiah  Ixi.  1;  St.  Luke  iv.  18). 

The  mission  of  our  Lord  upon  the  earth  was 
the  salvation  of  the  entire  being  of  man.  He 
worked  on  each  plane  of  man's  being  accord- 
ing to  the  need  of  the  sufferer.  The  woman 
who  wept  at  His  feet,  and  whose  spirit  was 
bruised  and  broken  by  sin,  He  pardoned  and 
blessed.  To  the  man,  dwelling  among  the 
tombs,  whose  mind  was  darkened  and  chained, 
He  gave  freedom  and  light;  and  those  whose 
bodies  were  afflicted  with  disease  or  racked 
with  pain,  He  touched  into  life  and  health. 

Now  we  affirm  that  the  revelation  of  our 
Lord  as  the  "Saviour  of  the  body"  cannot  be 
for  the  period  of  His  earthly  ministry  alone, 
for  Jesus  Christ  is  "the  same  yesterday,  to- 
day and  for  ever,"  and  what  He  brought  to 
humanity  by  His  Incarnation  and  His  work 
of  redemption  is  for  all  time  and  for  every 
nation.  We  can  come  to  Him  as  our  Healer, 
and  our  Good  Physician  now,  as  we  should 
have  come  in  the  days  of  His  visible  Presence 

17 


on  the  earth.  Our  Lord's  will  for  the  continu- 
ance of  His  ministry  of  healing  is  shown  by 
this  consideration,  that  He  instituted  the 
Church  to  carry  on  His  work. 

We  must  remember  that  our  Lord,  as  man, 
under  man's  conditions,  was  ministering  to 
those  around  Him  in  a  sphere  bounded  by  the 
human  limitations  of  time  and  place.  But  by 
His  atonement  and  by  His  ascension  and  the 
coming  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  the  sphere  of  His 
ministry  has  become,  in  its  possibilities,  wide 
as  the  human  race.  And  in  this  wide  sphere 
Christ  has  placed  His  Church,  as  the  appoint- 
ed channel  through  which  His  ministry  shall 
be  continued.  Is  it,  we  ask,  His  will  to  con- 
tinue through  the  Church  His  ministry  of 
healing?  And  we  find  that  He  has  given  to 
the  Church  the  direct  command  and  the  power 
to  carry  on  His  work.  When  He  first  sent  out 
His  twelve  Apostles,  He  gave  them  power  and 
authority  over  all  devils  and  to  cure  disease. 
He  sent  them  to  preach  the  gospel  and  to  heal 
the  sick  (St.  Luke  ix.  2).  "As  ye  go,  preach 
.  .  .  heal  the  sick,  cleanse  the  lepers,  raise 
the  dead,  cast  out  devils"  (St.  Matt.  x.  7-8). 
When  He  sent  the  seventy  it  was  with  the 
same  charge:  "Into  whatsoever  city  ye  enter 
.  .  .  heal  the  sick  that  are  therein"  (St. 
Luke  x.  8-9).  The  same  charge  was  given  to 
the  eleven  before  our  Lord's  ascension.  "Go 
ye  into  all  the  world  and  preach  the  gospel  to 
every  creature  .  .  .  and  these  signs  shall 

13 


follow  them  that  believe  .  .  .  they  shall  lay 
hands  on  the  sick,  and  they  shall  recover"  (St. 
Markxyi.  15-18).* 

This  is  Christ's  charge  to  His  Church,  and 
the  Church  can  only  respond  by  her  deep 
realisation  of  our  Lord's  Presence  among  us. 
Christ  has  said:  "Lo,  I  am  with  you  always, 
even  unto  the  end  of  the  world,"  and  the  living 
Presence  of  Christ  is  the  very  life  of  the 
Church.  What  does  His  Presence  mean?  Can 
we  realise  that  to  us  the  Son  of  God,  Life  of 
Life,  has  come  down  to  earth  and  taken  our 
nature  upon  Him,  and  that  to  us  through  His 
Incarnation,  life  and  healing  flow  out  from 
Him  to  our  whole  being.  That  for  us  He  has 
ascended  into  heaven,  that  by  the  coming  of 
the  Holy  Ghost  He  may  fill  all  things  and  em- 
brace all  humanity;  and  then  that  He,  the 
very  centre  of  healing,  is  with  us  now,  and 
saying:  "Come  unto  Me  all  ye  that  labour  and 
are  heavy  laden  and  I  will  refresh  you."  The 
charge  of  Christ  to  His  Church  is  great,  but 
the  power  of  the  Presence  of  Christ  in  His 
Church  is  more  than  commensurate  with  it. 

I  believe  that  our  Lord  is  coming  very  near 
to  His  people  at  this  present  time,  and  that 
we  may  thankfully  and  reverently  be  waiting 
to  receive  Him. 


*  If  the  authenticity  of  this  passage  be  disputed,  it  gives,  at  any 
rate,  a  very  early  view  of  our  Lord's  commission  to  His  min- 
istry, and  the  results  of  healing  by  the  laying  on  of  hands  bear 
witness  to  the  living  truth  of  the  words. 

19 


It  is  my  humble  and  solemn  conviction  that 
the  awakening  to  the  truth  of  the  spiritual 
healing  which  is  being  manifested  not  only  all 
around  us  here  but  also  in  isolated  and  distant 
countries  at  this  time  —  that  this  awakening 
is  the  call  of  Christ  the  Bridegroom  to  His 
Bride  the  Church;  and  it  is  a  most  wonderful 
manifestation  of  His  love.  Christ  is  reveal- 
ing Himself  to  the  Church  as  our  Healer  and 
the  source  of  all  healing,  present  in  our  midst, 
and  our  eyes  must  be  turned  towards  Him  and 
our  hearts  uplifted  to  Him  and  when  the  signs 
of  His  healing  presence  are  evidenced  and  men 
are  filled  with  wonder  and  questioning,  we 
must  see  that  we  do  not  let  anything  cloud  the 
vision  of  Christ  as  the  Healer.  Those  whom 
Christ  calls  to  be  channels  of  His  healing  need 
to  be  filled  with  the  pure  longing  for  Christ  to 
reveal  Himself  to  all  who  receive  His  healing 
through  their  ministrations,  that  no  shadow 
of  self  in  the  human  agent  may  come  between 
the  sick  and  Christ. 

I  believe  also  that  the  Holy  Spirit  is  work- 
ing mightily  among  us  to  wake  in  men's  hearts 
the  response  to  Christ's  call.  Do  we  not  see 
on  all  sides  hearts  opening  to  the  truth  of 
Christ's  healing,  and  if  we  see  men  being 
drawn  near  to  Christ,  is  it  not  because  Christ 
is  drawing  near  to  us?  "No  man  can  come 
to  Me  except  the  Father,  which  hath  sent  Me, 
draw  him." 

Our  Lord's  Presence  is  very  real  in  this 
20 


work,  and  the  results  of  healing  in  answer  to 
the  laying  on  of  hands  with  prayer  are  indeed 
signs  of  His  Presence.  The  truth  that  our 
Lord's  healing  is  not  for  the  body  only,  but 
for  the  entire  being  of  a  man,  is  being  proved 
to  me  constantly  by  the  fact  that  He  is  draw- 
ing nearer  to  Himself  many  poor  souls,  with 
all  kinds  of  troubles,  not  physical  only,  but 
mental  and  spiritual  also.  They  come  to 
Christ  with  their  burdens,  and  lay  bare  their 
hearts  to  Him.  Some  are  troubled  by  evil 
spirits,  some  weighted  down  with  sin,  and  the 
sin  must  be  confessed  to  God,  and  if  there  is 
malice  or  hatred  or  unf  orgiveness,  it  must  be 
taken  away  before  the  body  can  receive  heal- 
ing. This  work  is  embracing  not  only  the 
work  of  the  doctor,  but  of  the  priest.  It  is 
the  priest's  office  to  receive  these  burdened 
souls,  and  to  prepare  them  for  healing,  and  I 
reverently  ask  the  Church's  aid  now  for  these 
poor  souls  who  are  gathering  around  me. 
How  great  an  opportunity  the  Church  has, 
and  will  have,  in  this  work !  There  is  no  need 
to  fear  that  we  are  seeking  physical  health 
and  neglecting  the  life  of  the  soul  in  spiritual 
healing,  for  Christ  has  perfect  soundness  to 
give  us,  and  lays  His  Hand  in  healing  on  the 
troubled  spirit  and  the  sin-stained  soul.  The 
power  which  is  drawing  these  souls  is  the 
power  of  the  Presence  of  Christ,  and  if  in 
every  church  and  every  home  and  every  place 
we  could  realise  Christ's  Presence  more 

21 


deeply,  as  He  uplifted  us,  He  would  manifest 
His  Presence  to  us  more  and  more,  and  draw 
all  burdened  lives  to  Him,  that  they  might  find 
rest  to  their  souls. 

I  believe  our  Lord  is  coming  very  near  to  us 
in  His  love  and  healing  power,  and  that  the 
Church  has  a  great  work  to  do,  in  the  might 
of  the  Holy  Spirit,  to  prepare  the  way  before 
Him.  I  think  we  should  do  well  to  realise  that 
the  spirit  in  which  the  Church  should  carry  on 
this  work  of  preparation  should  be  the  spirit 
of  penitence — sorrowing  that  we  have  so  long 
rejected  Him  as  the  Saviour  of  the  body,  that 
we  have  so  long  limited  Him  in  all  the  healing 
that  He  has  longed  to  give  to  His  suffering 
ones.  Can  we  say  yet  that  Jesus,  Who  in 
wondrous  mystery  took  upon  Him  our  infirm- 
ities and  bore  our  sicknesses,  has  seen  of  the 
travail  of  His  soul  and  has  been  satisfied  with 
it?  We  must  pray  very  earnestly  that  the 
Church  may  go  forward  in  the  spirit  of  peni- 
tence and  of  deepest  humility. 

The  faith  which  the  Holy  Spirit  quickens  in 
the  soul  is  the  humble  faith  of  the  heart  that 
prays  to  God  and  waits,  knowing  our  un- 
worthiness  to  receive  anything  from  Him. 
We  must  guard  against  that  intellectual  faith 
in  which  the  sin  of  pride  lurks — which  claims 
a  response  from  God  according  to  its  faith,  as 
though  faith  were  the  cause  of  some  mechani- 
cal effect,  instead  of  the  opening  of  the  heart 
to  receive  God's  free  gift.  St.  Paul's  words 

22 


must  be  a  living  truth  in  our  hearts:  "By 
grace  are  ye  saved,  through  faith,  and  this 
not  of  yourselves :  it  is  the  gift  of  God." 

Then  we  must  remember  in  contrite  humil- 
ity that  the  way  of  healing  is  like  a  broken, 
long-disused  road — it  is  overgrown  with  the 
thorns  and  briars  of  our  long  neglect:  it  is 
blocked  with  the  boulders  of  thoughts  and 
ways  of  the  world  that  are  not  the  thoughts 
and  ways  of  God.  The  bridges  of  faith  have 
been  half  broken,  the  gates  of  prayer  have 
been  too  often  closed — should  we  dare  to  ask 
or  expect  our  Lord  to  come  in  healing  and  do 
His  mighty  works  among  us,  as  though  the 
way  were  made  straight  before  His  feet?  St. 
Peter's  words  to  the  multitude  whose  hearts 
God  was  opening  to  receive  the  message  of  the 
Gospel  are  strikingly  applicable  to  us  to-day : 

"Repent  ye  therefore  and  turn  again  that 
your  sins  may  be  blotted  out:  so  that  there 
may  come  seasons  of  refreshing  from  the 
Presence  of  the  Lord,  and  that  He  may  send 
the  Christ  who  hath  been  appointed  for  you, 
even  Jesus"  (Acts  iii.  19-20,  R.  V.). 

God  grant  that  the  Church  may  so  prepare 
His  way  before  Him  in  the  power  of  the  Holy 
Spirit  that,  "every  valley  shall  be  filled  and 
every  mountain  be  brought  low:  that  the 
crooked  may  be  made  straight  and  the  rough 
places  plain,"  and  then  may  God  in  His  mercy 
grant  to  us  the  gift  of  His  healing,  "that  all 
flesh  shall  see  the  Salvation  of  God." 

23 


I  should  like  to  point  out  one  of  the  ways  in 
which  the  Church  may  prepare  Christ's  way 
before  Him. 

Our  Lord  has  given  us  the  command  to 
preach  the  Gospel  and  to  heal  the  sick.  There 
is  a  close  connection  between  the  preaching 
and  the  healing,  for  Christ's  message  of  heal- 
ing must  first  be  preached,  as  words  of  life 
and  power,  to  prepare  the  way  for  the  prom- 
ised healing  to  follow.  The  Church  has  a 
great  work  to  do  in  preparation  for  our  Lord's 
coming  to  us  in  healing,  by  preaching  the  Gos- 
pel as  He  gave  it  to  us,  in  the  fulness  of  the 
good  tidings  of  great  joy;  that  Christ  has 
come  and  is  with  us  now  to  heal  the  broken 
hearted,  to  bring  "deliverance  to  the  captives 
and  recovering  of  sight  to  the  blind :  to  set  at 
liberty  them  that  are  bruised." 

The  words  have  perhaps  been  familiar  to  us 
all  our  lives,  but  they  have  seemed  to  lack  life 
and  reality. 

But  that  they  may  indeed  be  preached  as 
words  of  life  and  power,  they  must  be  in  union 
with  our  Lord;  they  must  come  through  us  as 
a  message  from  Christ  Himself. 

The  prophecies  of  healing  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment are  words  of  life,  because  they  were 
waiting  and  depending  upon  the  Presence  of 
Christ  for  their  fulfilment,  and  when  the  ful- 
ness of  time  had  come,  and  our  Incarnate  Lord 
was  with  men,  we  know  that  they  were  liter- 
ally fulfilled. 

24 


So  now  the  promise  of  healing  comes  in 
words  of  life,  because  it  is  Christ's  message, 
and  because  it  depends  for  its  fulfilment  upon 
Christ,  who  is  indeed  Emmanuel  —  God  with 
us. 

And  when  we  obediently  preach  these  words 
of  life,  they  seem  to  come  from  Christ,  and  to 
penetrate  to  the  very  spirit  of  the  man  who  by 
the  preparation  of  the  Holy  Spirit  is  attuned 
to  receive  them.  They  do  not  fall  on  deaf  ears, 
or  reach  the  mind  only,  but  come  to  the  spirit 
as  words  of  power,  because,  as  our  Lord  has 
said :  "The  words  that  I  speak  unto  you,  they 
are  spirit  and  they  are  life"  (St.  John  vi.  63). 

Do  we  realise  the  power  of  God's  Word  and 
His  Truth?  "The  Word  of  God  is  quick  and 
powerful  and  sharper  than  any  two-edged 
sword,  piercing  even  to  the  dividing  asunder 
of  soul  and  spirit  and  of  the  joints  and  mar- 
row" (Heb.  iv.  12). 

The  preaching  of  the  gospel  message  of 
healing  is  to  us  a  matter  of  simple  obedience, 
for  Christ  has  entrusted  it  to  us  to  deliver, 
and  the  fulfilling  of  it  rests  in  His  hands ;  but 
to  many  it  will  be  a  venture  of  faith  which 
must  be  bravely  and  fearlessly  made. 

God  has  said:  "As  the  rain  cometh  down 
and  the  snow  from  heaven,  and  returneth  not 
thither  but  watereth  the  earth,  and  maketh  it 
bring  forth  and  bud,  that  it  may  give  seed  to 
the  sower  and  bread  to  the  eater :  so  shall  My 
Word  be  that  goeth  forth  out  of  My  mouth ;  it 

25 


shall  not  return  unto  me  void,  but  it  shall  ac- 
complish that  which  I  please,  and  it  shall  pros- 
per in  the  thing  whereto  I  sent  it"  (Isaiah  Iv. 
10,  11).  So  let  us  be  content  to  fulfil  our 
mission  of  bearing  the  message  of  healing  and 
leave  results  to  God:  only  we  know  that  His 
Word  shall  not  return  unto  Him  void,  and  the 
Word  of  Life  may  bear  fruit  in  generations  to 
come,  even  if  the  conditions  of  faith  in  our 
day  are  so  weak  that  we  are  limiting  our  Lord 
in  His  mighty  works.  But  until  the  Gospel  is 
preached,  how  can  Christ  heal  the  sick? 

In  the  days  of  our  Lord's  visible  Presence 
among  men  those  who  wanted  to  help  the  sick 
and  afflicted  would  have  told  them  of  Christ 
who  had  come  to  heal  and  to  save,  and  would 
have  brought  them  in  faith  to  Him,  and  Christ 
would  have  done  the  work.  This  is  a  great 
part  of  the  Church's  work  now :  to  tell  the  sick 
of  Christ,  to  preach  the  Gospel  message  of 
healing,  and  to  bring  them  to  Christ  who  is 
present  with  us  now.  His  arm  is  not  short- 
ened that  it  cannot  save,  and  there  is  no  limit 
to  His  power  and  His  love.  The  works  that 
He  did  then  He  can  and  will  do  now,  and  He 
is  doing  them  now,  for  what  I  am  saying  to 
you  to-day,  I  am  saying  from  a  real  and  prac- 
tical experience  of  His  doing  such  works,  as 
in  the  days  of  His  visible  Presence  on  earth. 

It  will  help  us  to  feel  our  need  of  prepara- 
tion, that  by  His  grace  we  may  be  enabled  to 
receive  all  that  He  has  to  give,  if  we  realise 

26 


that  in  spiritual  healing  we  have  special  con- 
tact with  the  Person  of  the  Lord.  There  is 
much  to  learn  from  the  Gospel  accounts  of 
these  meetings  with  Christ  that  we  cannot 
dwell  on  now,  but  we  see  how  the  sick  came 
with  the  real  desire  for  healing,  and  His  de- 
sire to  heal  went  out,  as  it  were,  to  meet  them, 
for  His  heart  was  moved  with  compassion, 
and  He  drew  forth  their  prayer  of  faith,  ask- 
ing: "What  wilt  thou  that  I  should  do  unto 
thee?" 

Then  we  see  how  He  dealt  with  the  individ- 
ual character.  He  lifted  each  one  to  the  higher 
levels  of  faith  to  receive  the  healing,  lifted 
them  to  the  spiritual  plane  on  which  alone  He 
can  do  His  mighty  works.  So  now  He  reads 
our  hearts,  and  knows  what  we  need  and  up- 
lifts us  in  the  same  way.  In  these  meetings 
with  Christ  it  was  not  the  body  alone  that  was 
benefited.  Christ  laid  His  hand  on  the  source 
of  the  trouble,  and  His  touch  brought  healing 
to  spirit,  soul  and  body.  See  how  He  says  to 
the  paralytic  man:  "Thy  sins  are  forgiven 
thee,"  and  then:  "Arise,  take  up  thy  couch 
and  go  into  thy  house"  (St.  Luke  v.  20,  24), 
and  to  the  man  healed  at  the  Pool  of  Bethesda : 
"Behold  thou  art  made  whole,  sin  no  more" 
(St.  John  y.  14).  Do  not  misunderstand  me 
here,  or  think  for  a  moment  that  I  am  substi- 
tuting the  spiritual  healing  for  the  divinely 
appointed  means  by  which  Christ  comes  to  us 
in  His  Church  in  pardon  and  grace,  means 

27 


which  are  all  precious  to  us.  I  only  want  to 
point  out  that  in  the  spiritual  healing  we  are 
meeting  with  Christ  Himself,  as  did  those  who 
could  see  His  face,  and  that  the  touch  of  Christ 
who  "is  able  to  do  exceeding  abundantly  above 
all  that  we  ask  or  think"  may  transcend  all 
our  longing  if  only  we  are  open  in  spirit,  soul 
and  body  to  receive  all  that  He  has  to  give. 

To  those  who  approach  this  subject  for  the 
first  time,  the  thought  of  the  personality  of 
the  human  healer  is  apt  to  loom  too  large. 
The  Apostles  felt  this  strongly,  when  God  had 
given  them  grace  to  heal  the  man  -lame  from 
birth  in  the  name  of  Christ.  They  protested 
against  any  thought  of  themselves :  "Ye  men 
of  Israel,  why  marvel  ye  at  this  man?  or  why 
fasten  ye  your  eyes  on  us,  as  though  by  our 
power  or  godliness  we  had  made  him  to  walk? 
The  God  of  our  fathers  hath  glorified  His 
Servant  Jesus." 

This  point  should  be  well  in  the  mind  of 
those  to  whom  is  given  the  task  of  preparing 
the  sick  for  healing.  It  is  to  our  Lord  as  the 
Healer  that  the  sick  person  is  to  look ;  it  is  the 
faith  which  is  in  him  that  he  is  to  exercise, 
and  pray  for  its  increase.  He  should  be 
taught,  moreover,  to  look  for  spiritual  as  well 
as  bodily  healing. 

To  those  who  approach  in  this  spirit,  it  is 
found  that  at  the  time  of  the  healing  the  spir- 
itual presence  makes  it  impossible  to  think  of 

28 


the  human  channel  of  healing  or  the  assistants 
— they  are  but  instruments  of  the  Lord. 

And  afterwards  it  is  known  that  the  Lord 
has  been  working.  Indeed,  to  those  who  have 
such  faith  in  Him  and  have  got  to  know  Him 
as  the  Healer,  it  is  out  of  the  question  to  sup- 
pose that  the  fervent  prayer  is  not  heard  and 
that  the  answer  is  withheld.  In  what  exact 
way  the  healing  will  be  shown  is  not  to  trouble 
the  mind.  Faith  in  the  Lord  as  the  Healer, 
and  in  His  most  certain  promises  to  prayer, 
brings  the  certainty  that  the  gift  has  been  re- 
ceived. 

If  it  be  said  that  this  is  "suggestion/'  it  is 
at  any  rate  no  more  suggestion  than  any 
teaching  of  the  Christian  faith,  or  than  any 
of  our  Lord's  assertions  of  the  love  of  God  for 
man  and  His  willingness  to  give  him  all  good 
gifts.  If  it  be  suggestion,  it  is  that  of  friend 
suggesting  to  a  friend  the  way  in  which  to 
approach  and  to  receive  the  Christ.  When 
such  suggestion  is  rightly  received,  it  becomes 
the  living  spiritual  faith  in  the  person  who 
has  welcomed  it  as  truth,  which  he  can  and 
does  hold  as  true. 

We  carry  on  our  thoughts  to  picture  to  our- 
selves a  band  of  Christians  deeply  animated 
with  this  faith.  If  their  faith  and  prayer  is 
brought  to  bear  on  the  sick  in  whom  is  the 
possibility  of  a  kindred  faith,  would  not  a 
great  increase  of  healing  power  be  found? 
When  the  four  friends  brought  the  paralysed 

29 


man  to  our  Lord  at  Capernaum,  we  are  told 
that  "He  saw  their  faith."  Their  faith  con- 
stituted an  effective  call  upon  His  power.  Are 
we  to  despair  of  this  condition?  There  are 
many  in  whom  such  faith  can  be  found. 

If  community-faith  were  far  stronger  and 
more  widely  diffused,  we  can  but  think  that 
works  of  healing  would  be  much  more  seen 
and  much  more  widely  spread.  In  a  world  of 
real  Christian  faith,  the  non-healing  of  dis- 
ease would  be  more  remarkable  than  its  heal- 
ing. 

There  are  some  characteristics  of  our  Lord's 
healing  which  it  may  be  helpful  to  touch  on 
here,  seeing  that  His  ministry  now  is  the  same 
as  His  ministry  in  the  days  of  His  flesh.  His 
works  of  healing  are  a  revelation  and  fulfil- 
ment of  the  Personality  of  God,  because  in 
them  we  see  the  Holy  Trinity  working  in 
Unity,  through  the  Manhood  of  Jesus  Christ. 
Christ  has  said :  "The  Son  can  do  nothing  of 
Himself,  but  what  He  seeth  the  Father  doing : 
for  what  things  soever  He  doeth  these  the  Son 
also  doeth  in  like  manner"  (St.  John  v.  19, 
R.  V.),  and  "Believest  thou  not  that  I  am  in 
the  Father,  and  the  Father  in  Me?  .  .  .  '. 
The  Father  abiding  in  Me  doeth  His  works" 
(St.  John  xiv.  10,  R.  V.).  And  again,  of  the 
co-operation  of  the  Holy  Spirit  we  are  told 
that  "God  anointed  Jesus  of  Nazareth  with 
the  Holy  Ghost  and  with  power,  Who  went 
about  doing  good  and  healing  all  that  were  op- 

30 


pressed  of  the  devil,  for  God  was  with  Him" 
(Acts  x.  38).  The  works  of  healing  are  a 
manifestation  of  the  love  of  the  Holy  Trinity 
working  on  the  planes  of  human  nature  to 
which  God  had  come  in  a  wonderful  way  by 
the  Incarnation  of  Jesus  Christ.  If  we  could 
only  realise  that  those  whom  Jesus  sends  forth 
to  follow  in  His  footsteps  as  channels  of  His 
healing,  go  forth  in  the  power  of  the  Holy 
Trinity,  working  through  our  Lord  as  the  di- 
vine means  of  manifesting  God  to  man,  how 
great  should  be  our  faith  and  our  humility. 
There  should  be  no  room  for  doubt,  or  thought 
of  any  human  initiative,  when  God  Himself, 
the  ever  Blessed  Trinity,  is  working  through 
us  and  with  us  to  guide  our  steps. 

Again,  our  Lord  has  revealed  the  ministry 
of  healing  to  us  as  being  wide  as  the  love  of 
God.  There  are  no  limits  to  the  power  of 
Christ.  He  heals  "all  manner  of  sickness  and 
all  manner  of  disease  among  the  people"  (St. 
Matt.  iv.  23) .  He  heals  the  sufferer  who  "has 
spent  all  her  living  upon  physicians,  neither 
could  be  healed  of  any"  (St.  Luke  viii.  43), 
and  who  was  at  that  point  where  we  so  often 
lose  faith  in  God  to  heal.  Neither  are  there 
any  limits  to  the  love  of  God.  We  are  not  told 
of  any  who,  coming  to  Christ  for  healing,  were 
refused.  During  the  three  years  of  His  min- 
istry, there  was  healing  for  all  who  sought 
the  Saviour.  "And  all  the  multitude  sought 
to  touch  Him,  for  power  came  forth  from 

31 


Him  and  healed  them  all"  (St.  Luke  vi.  19). 
We  see  the  same  all-embracing  wideness  of 
God's  love  and  healing  in  His  charge  to  the 
disciples.  "Into  whatsoever  city  ye  enter  .  .  . 
heal  the  sick  that  are  therein." 

I  do  not  think  we  shall  realise  to  the  full  the 
wideness  of  God's  ministry  of  healing  until  we 
realize  and  accept  our  Lord's  attitude  towards 
sickness  and  disease. 

There  is  a  simple  directness  in  our  Lord's 
attitude  towards  sickness  and  disease,  and  I 
think  the  secret  of  his  strength,  resulting  from 
this  directness  of  purpose,  is  this :  He  is  con- 
scious, as  man,  of  perfect  union  with  God  in 
the  work  of  healing :  His  Manhood  is  the  chan- 
nel through  which  the  power  of  the  Holy  Trin- 
ity wills  to  flow  out,  and  does  flow  out,  to  the 
multitude  which  throngs  Him,  to  free  them 
from  the  powers  of  evil.  The  mind  of  Christ 
accepts  this,  and  no  shadow  of  doubt  clouds 
the  directness  of  His  attitude  or  the  straight 
course  of  His  mission.  He  looks  upon  the  dis- 
eased and  infirm  as  children  to  whom  He  has 
come  to  preach  deliverance  and  to  bring  heal- 
ing, and  His  heart  is  moved  with  compassion 
at  their  condition;  He  looks  upon  the  disease 
and  infirmity  as  powers  of  evil,  and  it  is  in 
overcoming  the  evil  that  the  works  of  God  are 
made  manifest,  and  God  is  glorified.  Notice 
His  words  with  regard  to  the  woman  whom 
He  loosed  from  the  "spirit  of  infirmity": 
"Ought  not  this  woman,  being  a  daughter  of 

32 


Abraham,  whom  Satan  hath  bound,  lo,  these 
eighteen  years,  to  be  loosed  from  this  bond  on 
the  Sabbath  Day?"  (St.  Luke  xiii.  16). 

His  attitude  towards  the  fever  from  which 
Peter's  wife's  mother  was  suffering  was  one 
of  rebuke. 

"He  stood  over  her  and  rebuked  the  fever 
and  it  left  her"  (St.  Luke  iv.  39) .  Again,  He 
says :  "If  I  cast  out  devils  by  the  Spirit  of  God, 
then  the  Kingdom  of  God  is  come  unto  you" 
(St.  Matt.  xii.  28). 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  in  His  ministry 
of  healing,  God  made  manifest  in  Jesus 
Christ,  was  destroying  the  works  of  the  devil 
It  was  a  direct  conflict  with  evil. 

Again,  we  never  hear  of  Jesus  speaking  of 
the  diseased  as  those  whom  God  hath  bound, 
but  "whom  Satan  hath  bound."  We  could 
never  think  of  Jesus  giving  disease  to  anyone : 
it  would  be  a  horrible,  impossible  thought :  He 
only  gives  help  and  healing — why,  then,  dp  we 
think  of  disease  as  coming  to  us  as  the  direct 
will  of  God  for  us?  Christ  is  the  revelation 
of  God,  and  in  all  His  thoughts  and  words  and 
deeds  He  reveals  to  us  the  will  of  God  and  the 
nature  of  God:  "I  am  the  Lord  that  healeth 
thee." 

We  must  realize  that  sin  is  in  the  world, 
and  that  disease  and  sickness  are  in  the  world 
as  its  natural  consequences.  Because  God  is 
Love,  and  the  law  of  love  is  reigning  every- 

33 


where,  we  who  are  born  of  God  find  all  peace 
and  happiness  in  union  with  God,  and  obedi- 
ence to  God's  laws:  and  it  must  follow  that 
disunion  and  disobedience  to  God's  laws  bring 
their  natural  consequence  of  discord,  misery 
and  disease.  But  through  all  the  disease  re- 
sulting from  man's  turning  away  from  God, 
the  source  of  life,  we  see  God  working  to  draw 
him  back  to  reunion  and  wholeness,  and  the 
life  of  Jesus  Christ  is  the  manifestation  of  the 
unchanging  love  of  God,  coming  down  to 
man's  need  to  bring  pardon  and  healing  to  all 
who  turn  to  Him. 

He  never  withholds  His  healing  from  those 
who  come  to  Him  to  receive  it,  and  when  the 
leper  asks  the  question  that  is  in  many  hearts 
to-day:  "Lord,  if  Thou  wilt,"  Christ  answers: 
"I  will." 

Now  if  this  unclouded  faith  in  the  Father's 
will  to  heal,  and  to  overcome  disease  as  a 
power  of  evil,  is  the  faith  of  our  Lord  as  the 
perfect  channel  of  healing,  our  clouded  faith 
must  be  a  source  of  weakness  in  us,  and  wher- 
ever our  attitude  towards  disease  differs  from 
that  of  our  Lord,  we  must  be  at  fault.  I  think 
that  what  the  Church  needs  to-day  is  to  ac- 
cept our  Lord's  attitude  towards  sickness, 
disease  and  infirmity:  to  realise  that  they  are 
powers  of  evil,  and  to  fight  against  them 
single-heartedly,  as  He  did,  and  overcome 
them  in  the  power  of  God  through  Jesus 
Christ. 

34 


We  have  to  consider  whether  on  this  whole 
question  we  are  right  in  affirming  that  sick- 
ness is  sent  by  God.  It  really  appears  that  it 
is  sent  by  God  just  as  far  as,  and  no  farther 
than,  sin  is  sent  by  God.  Suppose,  it  is  ob- 
jected, that  disease,  following  the  violation  of 
God's  law,  is  in  many  cases  the  natural  se- 
quence of  sin,  we  go  on  to  see  that  sin,  further 
and  deeper  sin,  comes  in  the  same  way  as  the 
result  and  sequence  of  sin.  In  both  cases  God 
allows  it  to  be  so,  but  in  neither  can  we  ascribe 
the  sequence  to  a  special  order  ad  hoc  from 
God.  Certainly  a  writer  in  the  Apocrypha 
expressed  the  Israelite  belief,  that  even  death 
could  not  rightly  be  considered  God's  will  for 
man,  for  he  proclaims :  "God  made  not  death" 
(Wisdom  i.  13) .  No  one  could  deny  that  very 
of  tea  by  the  grace  of  God,  the  bearing  of  suf- 
fering and  pain  is  made  the  means  of  great 
blessing;  death,  which  began  as  a  curse,  is 
turned  into  the  gate  of  life.  The  knowledge 
in  a  man  of  the  slavery  of  sin  in  himself  be- 
comes a  means  of  stirring  him  up  to  take  hold 
of  the  redemption  from  sin. 

Many  people  find  it  difficult  to  reconcile  the 
idea  of  spiritual  healing  with  a  preconceived 
idea  in  their  minds  that  suffering  and  sickness 
are  sent  by  God,  and  therefore  it  is  not  right 
to  use  more  than  a  certain  amount  of  effort  to 
overcome  it. 

In  the  first  place,  it  is  to  be  noticed  that  if 
suffering  is  really  sent  by  God,  no  means 

35 


should  be  used  to  defeat  God's  work,  no  doctor 
of  any  sort  should  be  called  in.  The  Shakers 
are  quite  logical  and  consistent  in  carrying 
out  their  belief  by  refusing  to  have  doctors. 
Yet  we  should  be  horrified  if  a  mother  found 
her  child  with  an  artery  cut  and  refused  to 
send  for  the  doctor  to  tie  it  up :  we  should  de- 
mand that  she  should  be  punished  by  law. 

If  it  is  right  to  use  doctors  for  healing,  it 
must  also  be  right  to  use  spiritual  healing,  if 
God  has  shown  us  the  truth  of  it. 

We  must  face  the  fact  that  the  thoughts  of 
the  world  are  not  the  thoughts  of  God;  that 
our  attitude  has  too  often  been  that  of  the 
multitude  who  tried  to  hush  the  blind  man's 
cries  to  Christ.  While  the  power  of  the  Lord 
has  been  present  to  heal  we  have  too  often  rea- 
soned together,  like  the  Pharisees  and  doctors 
of  the  law,  instead  of  coming  to  Him  in  simple 
faith,  and  Christ,  looking  upon  us,  must  still 
be  grieved  at  the  hardness  of  our  hearts.  We 
need  to  come  to  God  in  all  humility  as  little 
children,  definitely  accepting  Christ  as  He 
has  revealed  Himself  to  us  as  the  Saviour  of 
our  spirit,  soul  and  body,  desiring  earnestly 
to  "forsake  our  own  thoughts"  wheresoever 
they  are  opposed  to  His,  and  to  learn  of  Him. 
Then  Christ  will  manifest  Himself  to  us,  and 
by  the  power  of  the  Holy  Spirit  we  shall  be 
changed  until  this  mind  is  in  us,  which  was 
also  in  Christ  Jesus  (Phil.  ii.  5). 

The  spiritual  healing  has  a  message  for 

36 


those  who  by  patiently  suffering  for  Christ's 
sake  under  perhaps  some  weakening  disease, 
have  daily  grown  nearer  to  Him.  Here  we  see 
God  bringing  good  out  of  evil,  for  all  things 
work  together  for  good  to  them  that  love  God; 
but  do  not  let  us  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  the 
disease  is  evil,  and  that  the  aim  of  Christ  and 
Christianity  is  not  to  accept  evil  patiently, 
but  patiently  to  strive  for  the  victory,  and  in 
the  power  of  Christ  to  overcome.  Every  dis- 
ease conquered  in  the  name  of  Christ  is  a  vic- 
tory won  for  God,  and  God  is  glorified  in  His 
Son. 

Do  not  let  us  doubt  that  our  Lord,  in  heal- 
ing, is  giving  a  gift  even  greater  than  those 
we  might  receive  through  patient  endurance, 
for  the  wholeness  to  which  He  restores  us  is 
not  to  be  an  end  but  a  means;  it  is  Christ's 
perfect  condition  for  the  joy  of  service,  that 
those  whom  He  heals  may,  like  Peter's  wife's 
mother,  arise  and  minister. 

We  must  not  necessarily  connect  disease 
and  affliction  directly  with  our  own  sin,  nor 
think  that  those  on  whom  the  tower  in  Siloam 
fell  were  sinners  above  all  men.  In  some 
cases  we  see  suffering  as  a  direct  consequence 
of  sin  in  a  life,  and  our  Lord's  words  to  the 
man  at  Bethesda  seem  to  denote  some  connec- 
tion between  the  two,  but  in  the  majority  of 
cases  the  disease  comes  indirectly  as  a  result 
of  sin  and  imperfection  being  in  the  world, 
and  our  Lord  clearly  says  of  the  blind  man: 

37 


"Neither  hath  this  man  sinned,  nor  his  par- 
ents" (St.  Johnix.  3). 

Many  Christiars  find  a  real  difficulty  in  ac- 
cepting healing  from  our  Lord  in  the  thought 
of  St.  Paul's  "thorn  in  the  flesh"  (2  Cor.  xii. 
7-10).  The  nature  of  the  trouble  is  a  point 
on  which  theologians  differ,  and  we  have  yet 
to  learn  definitely  that  it  was  disease.  God 
suffered  this  conflict  to  go  on,  that  it  might 
bring  to  St.  Paul  that  humiliation  of  spirit 
which  alone  could  guard  him  from  the  s-»are 
of  spiritual  pride.  "Lest  I  should  be  exalted 
above  measure  through  the  abundance  of  the 
revelations,  there  was  given  unto  me  a  thorn 
in  the  flesh,  a  messenger  of  Satan  to  buffet 
me."  Physical  disease  may  cause  humilia- 
tion, but  to  a  soul  which  has  been  "caught  up 
into  paradise  and  heard  unspeakable  words 
which  it  is  not  possible  for  a  man  to  utter," 
could  anything  bring  so  deep  a  humiliation  of 
spirit  as  the  evil  suggestions  of  Satan,  whose 
buffeting  other  illumined  saints  of  God  have 
experienced? — suggestions  that  seem  to  taint 
the  soul  and  drag  it  down  to  the  material 
plane,  humbling  it  in  the  dust  and  shutting 
out  the  face  of  God  until  the  spirit  longs  to 
rise  above  the  burden  of  the  flesh ;  but  through 
the  darkness  God,  unseen,  is  developing  in 
that  suffering  soul  the  humility  and  the  pur- 
ity of  Christ.  May  not  this,  perhaps,  have 
been  the  thorn  in  the  flesh?  Then,  as  we 
study  God's  dealings  with  St.  Paul  we  do  not 

38 


find,  as  some  would  fear,  a  contradiction  or 
clouding  of  what  we  have  been  learning  of  His 
ways,  but  all  is  in  accord  with  the  nature  of 
God  as  manifested  in  the  healing  works  of 
Jesus  Christ.  The  thorn  in  the  flesh  is  clearly 
evil  in  origin;  it  is  a  messenger  from  Satan, 
and  when  St.  Paul  "besought  the  Lord  thrice 
that  it  might  depart,"  God  did  not  turn  a  deaf 
ear  to  his  prayers,  but  He  answered  them  by 
giving  grace  to  overcome.  When  St.  Paul  ac- 
knowledges his  weakness,  God's  strength  is 
perfected  in  him,  and  the  power  of  Christ 
rests  upon  him,  and  in  that  strength  and 
power  he  goes  forward  to  victory,  labouring 
"more  abundantly  than  they  all,"  till  in  the 
end  he  can  say  "I  have  fought  a  good  fight,  I 
have  finished  my  course,  I  have  kept  the  faith; 
henceforth  there  is  laid  up  for  me  a  crown 
.  .  .  ,"  the  crown  that  our  Lord  has  prom- 
ised to  "him  that  overcometh."  I  think  the 
perplexity  over  this  mysterious  passage  in  St. 
Paul's  life  has  been  so  real  in  some  minds  that 
it  has  shut  out  altogether  for  a  time  our  Lord's 
ministry  of  healing,  and  people  have  taken 
from  it  a  lesson  of  passive  endurance  of  dis- 
ease, forgetting  that  God's  grace  is  sufficient 
for  us  to  overcome. 

If  we  accept  sickness  and  disease  as  good 
when  Jesus  pronounced  them  evil,  our  error 
must  be  a  grave  source  of  weakness  in  us,  and 
it  is  also  giving  back  to  Satan  a  power  which 
our  risen  Lord  has  won  for  all  time.  "All 

39 


power  is  given  unto  Me  in  heaven  and  in 
earth"  (St.  Matt,  xxviii.  18). 

The  subject  of  suffering  is  one  too  vast  to 
dwell  upon  at  length  here,  but  I  should  like,  if 
I  could,  to  point  out  the  difference  between  the 
suffering  caused  by  sickness  and  disease  and 
the  suffering  by  which  the  humanity  of  our 
Lord  and  His  followers  is  perfected.  Christ 
came  to  bring  healing  to  the  sick  and  diseased 
and  to  uplift  those  who  were  suffering  from 
the  bondage  of  Satan  into  the  glorious  liberty 
of  the  children  of  God.  We  have  yet  to  learn 
that  our  blessed  Lord  suffered  from  disease. 
We  cannot  think  that  He  could  ever  be  in 
bondage  to  Satan;  "the  prince  of  this  world 
cometh  and  hath  nothing  in  Me."  Only,  as 
the  Sinless  One  bore  the  sins  of  the  whole 
world,  so  Christ  the  all-pure  took  upon 
Him  our  infirmities  and  bore  our  diseases. 
Christ's  ministry  was  to  deliver  humanity 
from  the  bondage  of  sickness,  disease  and 
sin,  and  as  He  draws  us  to  Him  to  find 
forgiveness,  so  He  draws  us  to  Him  to  find 
healing,  and  in  the  peace  of  His  pardon  and 
healing  the  suffering  is  lost  in  the  love  of 
those  to  whom  much  has  been  forgiven. 

But  now  we  come  to  the  sufferings  of  Christ 
Himself,  and  though  we  may  never  fathom 
the  depth  of  the  agony  which  He  bore,  we  may 
learn  a  little  of  the  nature  of  that  suffering. 
We  are  taught  that  "It  became  Him,  for 
Whom  are  all  things  and  by  Whom  are  all 

40 


things,  in  bringing  many  sons  unto  glory,  to 
make  the  Captain  of  their  salvation  perfect 
through  sufferings"  (Heb.  ii.  10).  What  was 
the  essence  of  the  sufferings  of  Christ?  Was 
it  not  the  rejection  of  His  love  by  those  whom 
He  loved  and  longed  to  save?  The  nature  of 
love  is  to  give;  love  is  ever  proceeding  forth 
from  the  Godhead,  and  where  love  sees,  as 
God  saw  in  fallen  humanity,  need  and  distress 
and  peril,  there  the  desire  of  love  to  give  is 
more  than  commensurate  with  the  need,  and 
we  see  it  manifested  in  the  breaking  forth  of 
the  love  of  God,  into  the  world,  even  in  the 
Incarnation  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  "God 
so  loved  the  world  that  He  gave  His  only  be- 
gotten Son."  The  ministry  of  Jesus  is  a  mani- 
festation of  love  outflowing  to  man's  need,  and 
where  hearts  were  shut  against  Him,  and  men 
would  not  receive  His  love  or  realise  their  need 
of  it,  there  we  see  the  suffering  of  the  Re- 
deemer. 

He  wept  over  Jerusalem,  saying,  "If  thou 
hadst  known,  even  thou,  at  least  in  this  thy 
day,  the  things  that  belong  to  thy  peace  .  .  ." 
Did  not  Christ  taste  in  His  agony  of  Geth- 
semane  the  full  bitterness  of  the  cup  of  man's 
rejection  of  God — for  God  had  come  down  to 
save,  and  man's  rejection  came  to  this,  even  to 
nailing  the  Son  of  God  to  the  Cross,  and  in  the 
thirst  of  His  love  for  man  thus  rejecting  Him 
lay  the  travail  of  His  soul  and  the  "unknown 
sufferings  of  that  amazing  sacrifice." 

41 


Our  Lord  on  Calvary  was  suffering  in 
spirit,  soul  and  body,  the  greatest  suffering 
love  can  ever  feel — and  which  only  love  can 
feel — even  rejection  by  those  whom  only  He 
could  save. 

And  in  this  suffering  every  Christian  who 
longs  to  be  filled  with  the  divine  love,  has  a 
share,  to  fill  up  that  which  is  behind  in  the 
sufferings  of  Christ.  This  is  not  the  suffering 
from  bondage  to  Satan,  from  which  Christ  up- 
lifts us,  but  it  is  a  share  in  the  Cross  of  Christ, 
and  as  long  as  there  is  in  the  world  the  spirit 
that  rejects  God,  so  long  will  all  in  whom 
Christ's  spirit  dwells  suffer  in  that  rejection. 
In  following  in  the  footsteps  of  our  blessed 
Lord  we  go  through  Gethsemane,  Gabbatha 
and  Golgotha,  for  it  is  only  through  suffering 
that  we  can  be  made  perfect.  St.  Paul  shared 
this  suffering.  "My  little  children,  of  whom 
I  travail  in  birth  again  till  Christ  be  formed 
in  you." 

I  think  that  we  as  Churchmen  ought  to  pon- 
der seriously  the  thought  that  in  withholding 
the  ministry  of  healing  from  those  whom 
Christ  came  to  heal,  we  are  rejecting  the  love 
of  God,  and  crucifying  afresh  the  Lord  of 
Glory.  Those  to  whom  God  has  entrusted  the 
gift  of  healing  know  that  our  Lord  desires  to 
work  through  them,  and  that  His  love  should 
flow  out  through  them,  and  if  they  limit 
Him  they  are  nailing  back  those  Hands  out- 
stretched to  bless,  and  those  Feet  swift  to  go 

42 


on  errands  of  healing,  and  piercing  that  Heart 
that  cannot  cease  to  give  out  love.  The  love  of 
God  is  not  a  sentiment  but  the  one  truth  of 
the  universe.  And  as  the  call  of  the  healing 
Saviour  comes  to  individuals,  so  it  comes  now 
to  His  Church  as  a  whole  and  we  must  see  that 
in  our  generation  we  are  faithful  to  our  trust. 
The  Ante-Nicene  Church  was  a  healing 
Church.  Will  the  same  be  said  of  the  Church 
in  the  twentieth  century,  or  will  Christ  be 
among  us  as  our  Healer  still  despised  and  re- 
jected of  men,  a  man  of  sorrows  and  acquaint- 
ed with  disease? 

There  are  some  who  fear  the  dangers  of  this 
movement  in  the  Church.  Should  we  not  fear 
rather  to  reject  our  Lord  as  He  has  revealed 
Himself  to  us?  We  know  that  the  nearer  the 
soul  comes  to  God,  the  harder  grows  the  con- 
flict with  evil,  and  so  the  closer  the  Bride  of 
Christ  draws  to  the  Bridegroom,  the  sterner 
will  be  the  conflict  with  principalities  and 
powers. 

Those  whom  God  sends  forth  in  the  power 
of  the  Holy  Spirit  are  impelled  to  go  forward. 
The  same  Spirit  that  drove  our  blessed  Lord 
into  the  wilderness  to  be  tempted  of  the  devil 
is  guiding  our  Church,  and  we  must  trust  in 
Him  to  keep  us  from  the  dangers.  We  must 
take  God  into  our  confidence,  and  His  strength 
will  be  made  perfect  in  weakness. 

The  question  sometimes  arises:  What  will 
death  be,  if  Christ  is  doing  His  mighty  works 

43 


among  the  faithful?  As  we  think  of  death 
now,  we  think  of  many  souls  passing  to  God 
in  the  agonies  of  some  terrible  disease,  but 
when  Christ  has  put  disease  under  His  feet 
will  not  death  be  the  call  to  the  soul  at  God's 
appointed  time  to  go  up  higher? 

In  the  realm  of  nature  where  there  is  little 
or  no  resistance  to  God's  working,  the  autumn 
leaf  and  the  ripe  fruit  drop  gently  down  in  the 
fulness  of  time,  and  a  healing  touch  has  been 
laid  on  the  branch  from  which  it  almost  im- 
perceptibly falls.  Will  it  not  be  so  with  us, 
and  will  not  death  be  the  peaceful  passing  of 
the  longing,  waiting  soul  into  the  nearer  pres- 
ence of  God,  which  the  words  picture  to  us? 
"Blessed  in  the  sight  of  the  Lord  is  the  death 
of  His  saints." 

Let  us  consider  now  what  healing  is,  and 
what  is  the  true  principle  of  healing  which  is 
working  universally  as  God's  law  on  the  spir- 
itual, mental  and  physical  planes  of  man's 
being. 

I  think  that  healing  is  a  power  of  the  mys- 
tery we  call  life  which  proceeds  from  God,  and 
that  the  principle  of  healing  is  this  power  of 
the  life  of  God  working  through  varied  chan- 
nels according  to  the  different  planes,  to 
quicken  the  life  and  healing  power  that  is  in 
man. 

God  has  breathed  into  man  the  breath  of 
life,  and  this  life  is  an  active,  living  force 
within  us;  but  the  life  within  needs  and  re- 

44 


ceives  continual  sustenance  from  God,  both 
directly  and  also  through  means  which  He  has 
ordained,  for  God  is  our  life  and  in  Him  we 
live,  and  move  and  have  our  being. 

Man's  being  is  threefold:  body,  soul  and 
spirit.  The  life  which  God  has  given  us  is 
working  in  each  part  of  our  being,  manifested 
in  each  in  higher  degree:  but  that  we  may 
fulfil  God's  ideal  for  us  and  be  channels  of  His 
life  to  the  world,  we  need  to  receive  from  Him 
a  continuous  influx  of  life  to  develop  all  that 
is  within  us  and  enable  us  to  minister  to  others 
in  whatever  way  He  has  called  us  to  do  so. 
Many  are  receptive  to  God  in  spirit,  some  are 
receptive  to  God  to  fill  the  powers  of  the  soul, 
but  we  all  ought  to  be  more  directly  receptive 
to  God  in  body,  and  to  realise  more  deeply  our 
need  of  Him  and  His  desire  to  impart  more 
life  to  us. 

God  teaches  us  the  lesson  of  the  constant  de- 
pendence of  the  life  within  us,  upon  that  which 
is  without,  by  our  daily  need  of  light,  air,  and 
food  to  sustain  the  material  life.  These  are 
means  which  God  uses  to  give  a  new  influx  of 
life  to  man  through  the  physical  plane:  and 
we  know  that  as  our  bodies  and  also  our  minds 
have  their  daily  needs  and  dependence  upon 
outside  things,  so  our  souls  are  in  continual 
dependence  upon  the  grace  of  God. 

Because  the  human  race  has  fallen,  and 
there  is  sin  in  the  world,  there  is  also  as  its 
consequence  much  disease,  infirmity,  and 

45 


weakness.  Yet  the  very  need  of  fallen  human- 
ity has  called  for  a  fresh  manifestation  of  the 
love  of  God,  for  it  is  as  though  the  white  light 
of  the  life  of  God,  meeting  man's  physical  suf- 
fering, was  refracted  into  the  rainbow  rays  of 
healing  and  life.  These,  coming  down  to 
quicken  the  life  that  is  in  man,  developed  in 
that  life  a  corresponding  healing  power,  for 
the  vis  medicatrix  naturae,  the  mystery  of  life 
within  us,  is  an  active  dynamic  force  that  co- 
operates with  the  life  and  healing  power  of 
God  to  militate  against  disease  and  to  cast  it 
out,  to  repair  that  which  is  injured  and  to 
strengthen  that  which  is  weak. 

Whenever,  through  weakness  or  disease, 
our  vitality  is  low,  the  healing  force  within  us 
needs  to  be  stirred  into  activity  by  God's  heal- 
ing power.  It  is  a  silent  and  very  wonderful 
witness  to  God's  love  towards  us  that  on  every 
plane  on  which  He  manifests  His  life,  in  ever- 
higher  degree,  there  He  also  manifests  His 
healing  power  in  ever-increasing  measure. 
We  see  a  manifestation  of  His  life  in  the  rocks 
and  stones,  where  it  seems  to  slumber,  but  yet 
is  never  still :  again  we  see  it  unfolding  in  the 
plants  and  trees,  revealed  in  instinct  in  the 
animals,  and  in  consciousness  and  intelligence 
in  man.  Then  we  come  to  the  highest  mani- 
festation of  all,  and  in  Christ  we  find  —  God 
Himself. 

In  the  same  ascending  scale  we  find  God's 
healing  power,  hidden  in  material  things.  He 

46 


has  put  healing  virtue  into  minerals  and  sul- 
phurous springs,  in  herbs,  in  light,  in  heat,  in 
electricity,  and  perhaps  other  forces  whose  se- 
crets are  yet  undiscovered.  When  we  come  to 
man,  we  realize  that  the  understanding  and 
skill  that  can  find  out  and  apply  these  forces 
are  gifts  of  God;  but  above  and  beyond  this 
man  is  able  to  receive  healing  power  from 
God,  and  to  transmit  it  to  others:  for  those 
whom  God  has  chosen  to  be  stewards  of  this 
mystery,  to  whom  He  has  entrusted  the  gift  of 
healing,  are  channels  through  which  Christ's 
power  flows. 

Then  we  come  to  Christ,  and  in  Christ  we 
find  life  itself.  In  the  union  of  His  humanity 
and  His  divinity  we  see  the  union  of  life,  for 
the  life  which  God  breathed  into  man  is  united 
with  God  the  Source  of  Life.  We  see  the  heal- 
ing power  of  Christ  working,  as  we  have  said, 
in  Nature  and  in  man,  "f  or  without  Him  was 
not  anything  made  that  was  made,"  but  in  His 
own  personality  Christ  gathers  up  all  healing 
in  Himself,  for  He  is  the  Lord  of  life.  One 
touch  from  Him,  one  look  or  word — even  the 
unconscious  contact  with  those  who  seek  to 
touch  the  hem  of  His  garment,  suffices  to  send 
the  healing  power  through  the  sufferer  and  he 
is  made  perfectly  whole. 

In  all  these  ways  we  see  God's  healing  power 
coming  to  quicken  the  life  that  is  in  man,  and 
we  must  remember  that  whatever  be  the 
means  through  which  the  healing  comes,  it  is 

47 


God  alone  who  heals.  If  we  realize  that  all 
healing  is  the  work  of  God,  we  shall  be  con- 
scious of  the  spirit  of  unity  underlying  all 
efforts  to  bring  healing  to  humanity,  for  all 
are  co-operating  with  God,  and  perhaps  the 
realization  will  lead  us  to  work  more  unitedly 
than  we  have  hitherto  done  for  the  benefit  of 
the  suffering,  until  our  work  is  uplifted  to  the 
highest  plane,  for  it  is  only  by  coming  to 
Christ  Himself  that  we  can  hope  to  find  per- 
fect wholeness  for  the  human  race. 

When  we  speak  of  spiritual  healing  as  the 
highest  kind  of  healing,  we  do  not  want  to  do 
away  with  the  means  God  has  provided  on  the 
mental  and  physical  planes.  We  whole-heart- 
edly acknowledge  these  as  gifts  of  God,  and 
see  God  working  through  them.  We  must  re- 
member that  God  is  dealing  with  a  very  large 
body  of  people,  and  that  all  are  not  able  to  re- 
ceive His  healing  in  the  same  way.  Because 
we  may  not  be  ready  to  come  direct  to  Christ 
for  spiritual  healing,  God  does  not  say  He  will 
give  us  nothing;  but  in  His  love  and  tender 
care  He  comes  in  healing  to  us  as  we  are  able 
to  receive  it.  Think  how  terrible  the  result 
would  be  if  we  were  to  shut  up  the  hospitals 
and  do  away  with  all  medicine  and  stop  the 
work  of  doctors.  It  would  be  like  taking  away 
the  crutches  from  a  lame  man  before  his 
muscles  were  able  to  support  him.  If  the 
mind  is  in  us  that  was  also  in  Jesus  Christ, 
we  shall  minister  to  others  as  they  are  able  to 

48 


receive  the  ministry,  and  from  God's  dealings 
with  us  to  learn  to  deal  with  our  brethren. 

Now  I  come  to  a  point  that  I  want  to  bring 
out  very  clearly :  and  that  is  that  all  the  work 
of  healing  that  is  done  on  the  mental  and 
physical  planes,  unless  a  spiritual  force  be 
brought  into  it,  is  limited  to  those  planes  by 
the  universal  law  that  nothing  can  rise  above 
its  source. 

When  we  are  seeking  healing  for  our  bodies 
alone,  and  from  material  means  alone,  though 
it  is  God  who  is  working,  we  are  limiting  His 
influence  to  the  physical  plane,  because  we  are 
not  open  to  receive  anything  higher  from 
Him;  we  are  not  expecting  anything  higher. 
A  drug  may  benefit  the  physical,  but  the  doc- 
tor who  administers  it  would  never  claim  that 
it  would  reach  the  spiritual  part  of  man's  na- 
ture. Magnetic  healing  is  a  natural  gift  of 
God,  and  this,  too,  rests  on  the  physical  plane. 
The  same  law  applies  to  mental  healing,  the 
principle  of  which  is  now  being  recognized 
and  used  by  many  of  the  medical  faculty. 
Its  working  is  upon  the  mental  plane,  and 
through  the  mental,  effects  are  produced  upon 
the  physical,  but  it  cannot  rise  to  the  spiritual 
plane  without  a  spiritual  force  behind  it. 
Mental  healing  demands  some  power  of  con- 
scious co-operation.  It  works,  as  it  were,  by 
self-suggestion ;  it  is  subjective,  and  thus  can- 
not affect  those  cases  most  needing  it,  where 
the  personality  itself  is  affected,  the  mind  de- 

49 


ranged,  the  will  paralysed,  and  the  mental  fac- 
ulties obscured.  We  come  to  the  conclusion, 
therefore,  that  the  results  of  healing  by  nat- 
ural powers  can  be  no  higher  than  natural ;  or 
in  other  words,  we  are  limiting  God's  healing 
to  the  physical  and  mental  planes,  and  the 
spirit  is  left  untouched.  These  means  can  be 
used  apart  from  belief  in  God  and  without  de- 
pendence on  Him,  so  that  the  results  which  are 
often  really  obtained  are  only  natural,  and 
leave  the  person  no  higher  than  they  found 
him.  They  may  even  be  the  foundation  of 
fresh  unbelief. 

True  spiritual  healing,  as  we  have  seen, 
seems  to  have  effect  on  the  whole  physical  as 
well  as  the  moral  and  spiritual  nature,  be- 
cause it  is  healing  through  the  complete  divine 
humanity  of  our  Lord,  which  cleanses  from 
all  sin,  with  a  view  to  perfect  soundness  in  the 
presence  of  God  and  man.  Natural  healing 
deals  with  both  cause  and  effect  only  when  the 
cause  is  in  the  physical  constitution ;  spiritual 
healing  can  deal  with  the  cause  when  it  lies 
deeper  in  the  moral  and  spiritual  weakness 
and  wrong-doing. 

Though  I  have  shown  that  the  work  done 
solely  on  the  mental  and  physical  planes  can 
only  have  natural  results,  yet  we  must  remem- 
ber that  the  spiritual  force  may  be  brought 
into  all  this  work  to  uplift  and  spiritualize  it, 
and  that  then  indeed  the  spirit  is  reached,  and 
God's  work  is  no  longer  limited  to  the  natural 

so 


planes.  We  cannot  doubt  that  through  the 
faith  and  prayers  and  the  devoted  lives  of 
many  doctors  and  nurses,  as  well  as  through 
the  means  they  are  using,  God  comes  in  heal- 
ing to  those  to  whom  they  minister.  We  can- 
not draw  a  line  between  natural  and  spiritual 
healing,  nor  would  \ye,  for  there  is  but  one 
healing,  since  all  healing  comes  from  God. 

Now  I  would  ask  you  to  consider  for  a  mo- 
ment the  condition  of  humanity,  especially  in 
our  large  cities,  and  think  what  is  being  done 
to  alleviate  that  condition,  and  what  results 
we  have  to  show.  We  see  a  vast  organization 
striving  after  the  Christian  ideal  of  perfect 
soundness :  there  are  the  hospitals,  and  homes, 
asylums,  reformatories,  prisons,  etc.,  and 
there  is  the  Church  brooding  over  all.  Then 
we  ask  ourselves,  are  diseases  being  stamped 
out  and  is  there  less  sickness  in  the  world? 
What  have  we  to  say  with  respect  to  the  moral 
and  spiritual  conditions?  Is  the  percentage 
of  crime  and  lunacy  less?  And  if  we  cannot 
answer  these  questions  satisfactorily,  where 
does  the  fault  lie?  I  do  not  propose  to  deal 
with  these  questions  statistically  nor  am  I 
qualified  to  do  so,  but  I  think  we  should  all  ac- 
knowledge that  there  is  a  terrible  amount  of 
suffering,  disease,  intemperance  and  lunacy 
in  the  world,  and  that  although  a  great  work 
is  going  on,  yet  we  must  admit  our  limitations. 
God  is  working  with  us,  but  does  not  the  fault 
lie  in  this — that  we  are  limiting  His  work  to 

51 


the  physical  and  mental  planes,  and  that  when 
we  reach  the  limit  of  what  human  aid  can  do 
in  co-operation  with  God,  we  give  up  in  des- 
pair and  accept  our  limitations? 

We  see  physical  suffering  that  we  cannot 
help.  There  are  diseases,  like  cancer,  that 
seem  to  baffle  the  most  intense  scientific  re- 
search after  a  cure.  We  see  the  troubled  lives 
of  the  lunatic,  and  the  wasted  lives  of  the  de- 
ficient, and  we  find  men  and  women  chained 
by  evil  habits  and  oppressed  by  the  powers  of 
darkness. 

How  can  we  rise  above  our  present  limita- 
tions, and  what  can  we  do  for  sinful,  suffer- 
ing and  oppressed  humanity? 

There  is  only  one  way.  We  must  come  to 
Christ,  our  Saviour  and  Deliverer:  we  must 
bring  humanity  to  Christ,  Who  was  and  is  all 
that  humanity  needs. 

In  questions  of  sickness  and  suffering  we 
are  faced  everywhere  with  the  thought  of 
heredity.  It  is  impossible  to  doubt  that  a  very 
large  proportion  of  moral  and  physical  evil 
may  be  traced  to  that  source.  In  many  this 
knowledge  breeds  a  hopeless  fatalism :  in  the 
Christian  it  should  breed  a  conviction  that 
the  Lord  has  means  of  dealing  with  a  man  to 
remove  the  disabilities  under  which  he  groans. 
When  through  the  Incarnation  He  came  into 
the  human  nature,  He  came  as  the  second 
founder  of  the  human  race,  the  author  of  a 
new  humanity.  He  initiated  a  new  heredity 

52 


of  grace  which  can  conquer  the  old  heredity 
of  sin  and  disease.  "If  any  man  be  in  Christ, 
he  is  a  new  creature."  The  Christian  surely 
must  believe  that  all  the  power  of  this  new 
creation  is  ready  at  hand,  through  the  ap- 
pointed channels.  He  does  not  think  that 
grace  works  on  him  apart  from  his  own  will ; 
he  knows  that  all  real  improvement  must  come 
through  the  medium  of  his  will. 

The  promise  is  to  him  that  overcomes.  He 
must  fight,  therefore,  against  the  inroads  of 
sin;  he  must  fight  against  the  inroads  of  dis- 
ease, but  the  fight  means  to  the  man  of  real 
faith  the  assurance  of  triumph,  because  it  is 
the  Lord  of  boundless  power  who  is  working 
in  and  with  his  will. 

Our  Lord's  question:  "Wilt  thou  be  made 
whole?"  very  clearly  implies  that  the  will  to 
put  away  sickness  is  needed  in  order  that  His 
power  may  have  its  due  effect.  The  cutting 
off  of  the  entail  of  disease  and  sin  should  be 
the  firm  expectation  of  the  Christian  life.  The 
cutting  off  of  the  entail  of  sin — what  hope  for 
the  human  race,  if  the  Lord  wills  to  do  this 
through  His  Church.  Too  often  we  start  a 
fresh  entail  of  sin  and  leave  a  dire  inheritance 
behind  us.  This  cannot  be  God's  will;  it  is  in- 
consistent with  the  mission  of  the  Saviour. 
The  idea  of  the  possibility  of  destroying  the 
taint  of  heredity  is  in  accordance  with  the  rev- 
elation of  Him  as  the  Saviour. 

There  are  many  convincing  signs,  attested 

53 


by  persons  of  undoubted  faith  and  under- 
standing, who  are  willing  and  anxious  to  bear 
witness  of  what  they  know,  that  this  power  of 
healing  is  real  and  in  Christ.  Now  comes  the 
question,  whether  those  responsible  for  the 
guidance  of  the  Church's  action  are  to  accept 
their  evidence  or  not.  If  they  find  this  evi- 
dence to  be  credible,  the  matter  cannot  be  left 
as  a  matter  of  merely  individual  concern,  with 
the  danger  which  always  belongs  to  mere  pri- 
vate judgment  on  matters  of  the  faith.  We 
ask  that  our  Fathers  in  God  should  recognize 
the  use  of  this  power  as  a  God-given  gift,  to  be 
used  with  all  due  safeguards  for  the  blessing 
of  the  faithful  in  the  name  of  the  Lord.  We 
have  not  to  do  in  this  matter  with  those  out- 
side the  pale  of  life  in  the  Incarnate  Son  of 
God,  but  it  is  a  matter  which  belongs  essen- 
tially to  the  full  manifestation  of  that  life  in 
Christ. 

This  question  is  continually  coming  up. 
Should  not  the  Church  be  doing  this  work 
which  belongs  to  her  proper  sphere?  By  what 
authority  does  she  ignore  this  side  of  her  min- 
istry? Why  are  we  to  say  that  the  power  of 
healing  in  the  name  of  the  Lord  has  ceased? 
If  it  has  not  ceased  it  must  be  recognized,  or 
we  are  losing  a  great  part  of  the  power  of  our 
Divine  Lord.  Does  not  the  leakage  into 
"Christian  Science,"  which  cannot  be  denied, 
point  to  the  neglect  of  this  truth? 

It  has  been  well  said  that  healing  is  the 
right  hand  of  the  Church :  those  to  whom  the 

54 


truth  of  this  has  been  revealed  are  willing  to 
use  all  effort  and  prayer  to  restore  it  to  its 
place  in  the  Church  of  God. 

I  earnestly  believe  that  this  awakening  to 
the  truth  of  Christ's  presence  and  healing 
power  is  a  movement  of  the  Holy  Spirit  in  the 
Church.  The  "rushing,  mighty  wind"  of  God 
is  with  us,  and  we  cannot  tell  "whither  it 
goeth,"  nor  how  wonderfully  God's  plan  will 
develop,  filling  our  whole  being  with  His  life, 
drawing  souls  to  Him,  and  bringing  Christ  to 
the  heathen  "with  healing  in  His  wings."  But 
that  God's  kingdom  may  come,  we  must  pray 
most  earnestly  that  His  will  may  be  done  in 
earth  as  it  is  in  Heaven  —  that  is,  that  the 
Holy  Spirit  may  fill  us  and  work  in  us  for  the 
accomplishing  of  His  designs.  God  is  calling 
us  to  a  work  that  no  human  power  can  do; 
only  the  Holy  Spirit  can  do  it,  and  we  can  only 
offer  to  God  our  spirits,  souls  and  bodies,  as 
channels,  emptied  of  self  by  the  power  of  the 
Cross  of  Christ,  that  He  may  uplift  our  whole 
being  and  use  it.  The  Church  must  offer  to 
God  this  whole  movement,  because  of  our- 
selves we  can  do  nothing,  and  must  pray  that 
the  Holy  Spirit  may  in  all  things  direct  and 
rule  our  hearts.  We  need  this  sorely,  that  no 
human  initiative,  no  self-activity  may  resist 
God's  working,  and  this  prayer  will  be  a 
prayer  offered  in  union  with  God,  and  will 
assuredly  be  answered. 

In  conclusion,  I  want  to  point  out  the  great 

55 


responsibility  of  bringing  the  truth  of  Christ's 
healing  before  the  world  from  the  standpoint 
of  Christ.  It  rests  with  the  Church  to  teach 
Christ  the  Son  of  God  as  the  Lord  of  life  and 
the  Fount  of  healing,  to  spirit,  soul  and  body, 
and  to  bring  the  sick  and  oppressed  and  sinful 
and  sorrowful  to  Him. 

Many  people  are  approaching  this  subject 
from  the  mental  side.  We  acknowledge  whole- 
heartedly the  value  of  scientific  researches  in 
the  field  of  psychology  and  mental  therapeu- 
tics: they  are  revealing  laws  through  which 
Christ  is  working.  But  "the  natural  man  re- 
ceiveth  not  the  things  of  the  Spirit/'  and  hu- 
man reason  cannot  find  Christ:  only  Christ 
can  so  touch  the  spirit  of  man  and  illumine  the 
human  reason  consecrated  to  Him,  that  that 
man  will  see  God  working  through  all  the  laws 
which  scientific  research  manifest  to  us.  We 
find  that  many  people  are  seeking  the  way  to 
spiritual  healing,  and  the  Church  can  teach 
them  that  Christ  Himself  is  the  Way.  Let  us 
first  accept  our  Lord  as  the  Saviour  of  spirit, 
soul  and  body,  and  all  the  rest  will  be  added 
unto  us. 

Christ  is  the  Way,  and  Christ  Himself  is  the 
Truth.  The  love  of  our  healing  Saviour  for 
the  world  is  waking  a  response  in  the  desire 
for  healing  that  is  in  many  hearts  to-day. 
This  desire  is  impelling  men  to  search  for  the 
truth  of  the  healing,  and  God  is  rewarding 
those  who  are  seeking  with  their  minds  in  the 

56 


various  fields  of  thought,  with  the  revelation 
of  truths  of  His  workings.  But  we  need  more 
than  that:  "Our  heart  is  restless  until  it  finds 
rest  in  Thee."  We  must  seek  God,  not  with 
the  mind  only,  but  in  spirit,  and  then  we  shall 
find  Christ,  the  source  of  healing,  and  in 
Christ  all  truths  are  gathered  up,  for  He  is 
the  Truth. 

I  believe  that  God  has  a  message  of  healing 
to  the  Church  at  this  time — a  charge  to  the 
Church  to  reveal  to  all  seekers  after  healing 
that  it  is  in  Christ  Himself,  and  only  in  Christ 
that  we  shall  find  the  way,  the  truth  and  the 
life.  If  the  Church  will  do  this  faithfully,  in 
the  simplicity  of  our  blessed  Lord's  "gospel  to 
the  poor,"  we  cannot  tell  what  wonderful  rev- 
elations of  the  divine  love  and  power  may  be 
made  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  nor  can  we  fathom 
all  that  lies  hidden  in  the  "unsearchable  riches 
of  Christ."  Little  by  little  we  are  learning, 
but  God  has  much  to  teach  us  from  the  revela- 
tion of  Himself  in  the  life  of  Jesus  Christ. 
Our  Lord  said  to  His  disciples:  "I  have  yet 
many  things  to  say  unto  you,  but  ye  cannot 
bear  them  now.  Howbeit  when  He,  the  Spirit 
of  Truth,  is  come,  He  will  guide  you  unto  all 
truth  ...  He  shall  glorify  Me,  for  He  shall 
receive  of  Mine  and  shall  show  it  unto  you" 
(St.  John  xvi.  12-14) .  "The  Spirit  searcheth 
all  things,  yea,  the  deep  things  of  God"  (1  Cor. 
ii.  10). 

Christ  is  the  life,  and  He,  who  came  to  give 

57 


life,  and  to  give  it  more  abundantly,  is  indeed 
with  us  now,  and  the  work  that  is  going  on 
bears  witness  to  the  power  of  His  healing 
presence.  It  may  help  some  to  realize  how 
true  and  real  is  the  Healing  power  of  Christ — 
the  healing  virtue  which  flows  out  from  Him 
to  the  sick  through  the  laying  on  of  hands  with 
prayer — if  I  say,  with  humble  thankfulness, 
that  people,  suffering  from  many  and  various 
diseases,  both  nervous  and  organic,  such  as 
cancer,  paralysis,  locomotor  ataxy,  internal 
ulceration,  growths,  colitis  and  many  other 
troubles,  coming  in  faith  to  Christ,  have  re- 
ceived from  Him  healing  and  cleansing  in 
spirit,  soul  and  body.  Experience  leads  me 
further  to  believe  firmly  in  obsession,  and  in 
the  power  of  Christ  to  cast  out  evil  spirits  and 
set  free  those  whom  Satan  has  bound.  I 
should  like  to  mention  two  cases  to  show  how 
great  an  opportunity  the  Church  has  in  carry- 
ing on  the  ministry  of  healing. 

The  first  is  that  of  a  little  child,  who  had  an 
evil,  uncontrolled  temper.  In  answer  to 
prayer  and  the  command  to  the  evil  spirit  to 
depart  in  the  name  of  our  Lord,  it  was  cast 
out,  and  the  healing  of  that  little  child  led  to 
the  conversion  and  baptism  of  the  father  and 
mother. 

The  second  is  that  of  a  woman  who  was  in- 
temperate. She  was  obsessed  by  a  spirit  of 
drink,  and  her  home  and  children  were  terri- 
bly neglected.  The  saving  power  of  Christ 

53 


prevailed,  and  the  spirit  was  cast  out  and  left 
her  immediately.  She  seemed  to  be  a  changed 
woman,  and  during  the  three  years  that  have 
passed  since  then  she  has  never  again  been 
intemperate,  but  is  a  good  wife  and  mother. 
On  being  questioned  as  to  why  she  had  pur- 
sued that  evil  course,  she  said:  "I  could  not 
help  it.  There  seemed  to  be  something  that 
dragged  me  into  those  places  and  made  me 
drink." 

There  are  many  poor  souls,  oppressed  by 
Satan  to-day,  and  sorely  needing  the  Church's 
ministry :  they  must  be  brought  to  Christ,  who 
alone  can  save  them.  Our  Saviour  took  "the 
lowest  place/'  "the  very  scorn  of  men  and  the 
outcast  of  the  people"  that  He  might  uplift, 
and  save  even  the  most  degraded.  There  is 
hope  for  all;  and  though  the  powers  of  evil 
seem  so  strong,  God  has  promised  that  "when 
the  enemy  shall  come  in  like  a  flood,  the  Spirit 
of  the  Lord  shall  lift  up  a  standard  against 
him." 

May  I  leave  with  you  one  last  thought,  a 
doctrinal  truth,  containing  an  intensity  of 
meaning  to  the  human  race? 

Our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  the  Son  of  God  is 
Man,  and  in  His  perfect  humanity  in  glory  at 
the  Right  Hand  of  the  Father  God  sees  the  to- 
tality of  humanity,  the  perfecting  in  spirit, 
soul  and  body,  of  every  nation  and  every  indi- 
vidual. The  love  of  God  is  proceeding  forth  to 
us  in  the  outpouring  of  the  Holy  Spirit, 

59 


through  the  perfect  humanity  of  our  Blessed 
Lord,  for  the  perfecting  of  the  human  race, 
that  when  He  shall  appear  we  may  be  like 
Him.  And  to  humanity  God  has  given  through 
the  Church  His  Holy  Spirit,  and  the  fervent 
desire  of  the  Indwelling  Spirit  after  the  per- 
fection of  Christ  in  spirit,  soul  and  body  is 
always  reaching  out  to  meet  the  desire  of 
God's  love  for  us. 

Is  it  not  through  the  longing  of  God  for 
man,  and  in  the  longing  of  the  Indwelling 
Spirit  in  man  for  God  that  we  shall  attain, 
through  Jesus  Christ,  to  the  reunion  of  hu- 
manity with  God,  and  by  striving  onwards 
through  time  shall  find  in  Eternity  the  fulfil- 
ment of  our  Lord's  prayer — 

"That  they  all  may  be  one,  as  Thou,  Father, 
art  in  Me  and  I  in  Thee,  that  they  also  may  be 
one  in  Us  ...  I  in  them  and  Thou  in  Me, 
that  they  may  be  made  perfect  in  One"  (St. 
Johnxvii.  21,  23). 

O  for  a  thousand  tongues  to  sing 

My  dear  Redeemer's  praise, 
The  glories  of  my  God  and  King, 

The  triumphs  of  His  grace! 

Jesus — the  name  that  charms  our  fears, 
That  bids  our  sorrows  cease; 

'Tis  music  in  the  sinner's  ears, 

'Tis  life,  and  health,  and  peace. 

He  breaks  the  power  of  cancelled  sin, 

He  sets  the  prisoner  free; 
His  blood  can  make  the  foulest  clean; 

His  blood  availed  for  me. 

60 


He  speaks ;  and  listening  to  His  voice, 
New  life  the  dead  receive, 

The  mournful  broken  hearts  rejoice, 
The  humble  poor  believe. 

Hear  Him,  ye  deaf ;  His  praise,  ye  dumb, 
Your  loosened  tongues  employ ; 

Ye  blind,  behold  your  Saviour  come; 
And  leap,  ye  lame,  for  joy; 

My  gracious  Master,  and  my  God, 

Assist  me  to  proclaim 
And  spread  through  all  the  earth  abroad 

The  honours  of  Thy  Name. 


Jtragrr 

O  God  our  Heavenly  Father,  we  pray  for  Thy 
blessing  upon  the  Christian  Healing  Mission. 
Bless,  protect  and  guide  those  who  have  gone 
forth  in  the  name  of  Thy  Son  our  Saviour 
Jesus  Christ.  May  all  that  they  do  be  directed 
and  governed  by  Thee.  May  they  be  so  filled 
with  the  Spirit  of  Christ  that  they  may  be 
bearers  of  His  Light  to  those  who  sit  in  dark- 
ness, for  the  setting  at  liberty  of  souls  whom 
Satan  hath  bound,  and  for  the  healing  of  all 
who  are  sick  and  suffering  in  mind  and  body. 
And  we  ask  that  they  and  all  who  are  linked 
with  them  in  prayer  at  home  may  be  ever 
united  in  Thy  Love,  and  protected  from  every 
snare  of  the  enemy,  so  that  by  Thy  Grace  Thy 
purposes  may  be  fulfilled  to  the  Glory  of  Thy 
Holy  Name;  for  Jesus'  Sake.  Amen. 


62 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 
Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 


-'UL  1  0  Bfi? 


REC'D  LD 


FEE    1'66-12M 


Binder 
Gaylord  Bros 

Makers 
Syracuse,  N.  } 

PAT.  JAN  21,  1908 


LIBRARY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  BEFORE  CLOSING  TIME 
ON  LAST  DATE  STAMPED  BELOW 

LIBRARY  USE  — 


^ 


JAN  19  '67  -9PM 

LOAN  DEPT. 

LD  62A-50m-7,'65 
(F5756slO)9412A 


General  Library 

University  of  California 

Berkeley 


